


The Past through the Lens of Dreams

by Water_Slime (Fire_Slime)



Series: The Long, Harsh Road [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Family Bonding, Fix-It, Gen, Harry-is-Loki, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reincarnation-fic, Second Chances, Slow Build, bookverse, mergeverse, pre-HP-canon, redemption-fic, remembering through dreams, this lays the groundwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-11-08 19:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Slime/pseuds/Water_Slime
Summary: Harry doesn't know what's going on, or why he's suddenly having such strange dreams after he turned ten.  Maybe he's a freak, after all.  Or maybe the world in his dreams is real, and these are memories of a past life.  (He'll put off admitting they're real for as long as he can.  He no longer wants them to be true.)





	1. Dreams and Realities

**Author's Note:**

> **original author's note:** This is based on the MCU, and by that I mean, the _films_, _not_ the _comics_. It may, very rarely, draw from Norse Mythology, what I know of it, but one of my oft-broken rules of writing fanfiction is that I must not do research. There are a few reasons for sticking to the films. The most obvious reason is that that is the category in the menu. There are other categories for the comics, I'm sure.  
But perhaps most important is this: I believe that, if you are familiar with the material you are reading a fanfic of (and I don't know why anyone reads fanfics of things they _aren't_ familiar with), then you should be able to follow along with a story without feeling that you're missing something because these people are making references to—  
Trust me, there are plenty of fics out there that try to incorporate elements from the comics. If my faithfulness to the movieverse bothers you that much, they shouldn't be hard to find.  
Warning! This is a "Harry is" cliché fic. If you are tired of these, I suggest you go elsewhere.
> 
> Oh, and this is bookverse HP.
> 
> **Update:** having seen _Endgame_, I can say that this story still feels like a necessary fix fic, and therefore I hope you will forgive me if I don't abandon it before it's even published.  
However….  
This story is incomplete. I had written through chapter one hundred thirteen, or something, when it came out. Even if I published two chapters a week, it'll take me over a year to post this. That suggests (as I'm on year five), that I'll be finished with this story before what I post catches up to what I've written. However, as a result of publishing before this is complete, I haven't had the chance to check things like canon accuracy (which I couldn't have done anyway, without access to the relevant movies, or the time in which to watch them, or copies of the books that I actually know where they are).  
In short: this story might deviate from the movies and books: go ahead and point out where I make mistakes. Sometimes it will be deliberate; usually it will be accidental. Forgive me my inaccuracies, I beg of you, and try to enjoy this even though the original series are over, okay?
> 
> **note3:** originally published under the name _The Long, Harsh Road_ at FF.net. I'm working on book six now, not five. Let me know if I screw up canon events, okay? Someday, I'll edit these author's notes to make them more relevant to Archive of Our Own.

Harry Potter of Number Four, Privet Drive, knew that he was a freak long before his tenth birthday. He'd known it for years, the information fed regularly to him by his aunt and uncle, with whom he lived following the catastrophic car crash that had ruined his life.

He was told that he was a freak most often by his Uncle Vernon and cousin, Dudley, Uncle Vernon when something difficult to explain happened, or he was feeling particularly vindictive, and Dudley…well, on a regular basis_—_perhaps whenever his tiny brain recalled the fact.

Harry had accepted that this _was_ a fact, was _true_, before he'd acquired even a little of the critical thinking skills he would need to analyse its accuracy. Strange things happened around him; he was a freak. Conclusion and premise seemed too far removed, if you took it apart thus. But he didn't think to do that until he was eight or nine. He wasn't sure which.

Looking back on it, all he could recall later was that, whenever it was that he'd first analysed the argument—first thought to question it_—_he had only just begun to settle into the conclusion that it _wasn't_ true, when his tenth birthday had struck, as the chimes of Cinderella's curst clock, and his conclusion was upended, overruled, by the dreams.

Because surely no one else had such dreams as these; either his dreams before had been freakish, if these be normal; or those dreams had been normal, if these be freakish; or both; there was no avoiding the fact, however, that one type at least of his dreams, the _before_, or the _after_, must be odd, and wasn't that what it meant, to be a freak? That there was that about you, something, about which people could only say, "well, that is unusual"?

The _before_ dreams were what he considered normal. Ordinary, everyday objects and things, arranged in unusual combinations, sequences, and patterns. Going to the dentist to find that the dentist was trying to pull your teeth with a guitar pick while his marmalade cat juggled jars of the condiment by the cabinets. Or you were taking a walk through the city park, when suddenly all of the flowers began to sing a nonsense song to the melody of "Blue Danube", but the neighbour was trying to cut the heads off the flowers (and Aunt Petunia wouldn't like that, now would she?)

Harry was fairly sure that normal people have such dreams. He assumed they were a universal constant. Sometimes, it was true, they were less surreal, featuring a giant with a scraggly, full beard carrying him in his arms, whilst riding a _flying motorbike_, and with such sincere care that Harry cried when he woke, at least when he was little, pining for that overt affection, the compassion, the love that he received only in dreams.

And there was the nightmare with the bright flash of green light, which he sensed had more detail to it than he remembered upon waking. That light was all that ever stayed with him, however, that and a feeling of…_bad_. It was a nightmare because it carried with it some unidentified badness, not fear, not sorrow, not anger, not shame, not guilt. Just negativity itself, simplistically laid out. That was enough to make it a nightmare.

Harry did not hate the colour green, and did not shrink from the green lightbulbs on the strands of lights people hung up at Christmastime. The only thing that gave him to know that this was a nightmare was that _badness_ it left even when he woke. Something bad came with the green light.

Actually, that dream occasionally surfaced even after the new type of dream supplanted the old ones.

The dreams that Harry Potter considered freakish, himself, the dreams that made him "a freak", started the very night of his tenth birthday. Not those early hours of the morn of July Thirty-First_—_those were full of the old, ordinary dreams.

But the new dreams began that night. He had not been expecting them, and had at first written off their strangeness as an anomaly_—_a single instance of confusion, perhaps; if dreams were meant to clarify the data collected over the day, it perhaps made sense that a particularly vexing problem might produce more muddled, insubstantial dreams. It was true that never before had Harry had dreams that were little more than vague impression of colours and sounds(such bright light! What a loud noise!) but school grew progressively harder as you aged, and even now, during the summer break, perhaps….

Before he could think about it too hard, see the holes in his flimsy explanation formulated as he dressed for the day, he shoved all thought and memory of the hazy dream aside, and set to his household chores, content to ignore the oddity of the anomaly. He had important, real things to concern himself with, as cooking breakfast. And weeding Aunt Petunia's flower garden.

But the next night, he had a repeat of the dream of the last. Or maybe it wasn't a repeat_—_a dream made of nothing but vague impressions is difficult to tell from its fellow hazy muddles. There seemed to be a lot of green, red, blue, and gold in both dreams. What more could you go by?

But the dreams continued, and Harry was forced to reconsider his conclusion that he was _not_ a freak, that nothing was wrong with him. These were freaky dreams. He was _sure_ that normal people did not have dreams of unclear sounds and blurred-together colours, night after night. Maybe he _was_ a freak.

He wondered if the frustration that he felt with the dreams' vagueness was how people who wore glasses felt, when their glasses were missing. That lack of focus was as an itch unscratched, needing to be humoured. He found himself dwelling upon the dreams, "squinting" at them, as if that would bring them into focus.

Perhaps it did.

Time progressed, and, without consciously realising it, within the month, he was isolating individual words, recognisable shapes_—_an oval, a square, a diamond, with their individual colours: a _brown_ oval, a _green_ square, a _white_ diamond. The difference was small, but it served to make Harry just the tiniest bit curious about the dreams, themselves. And those words, fragments of conversation, which blew "in one ear, and out the other". What was it all _about_? He wanted to understand, but had no frame of reference.

It took another three months for the dreams to resolve themselves enough for them to become…well, like ordinary reality, he supposed. There was none of the constant flux he was used to with dream-stuff, still, but the haze had sharpened and clarified, for the most part, into a beautiful setting, of lavish luxury, a palace picked out in bright colour and radiant jewel tones and gold. Even before it solidified, that exquisite beauty was so breathtaking that it filled Harry with a sharp pang of loss to wake in his cupboard, with that luscious dreamscape out of reach.

He spent the next month wandering empty halls, learning the lay of the land, amidst the bright gold and rich verdure of courtyard and palace walls. The palace was in suspiciously good repair for being completely empty save for him, himself. But the lack of furniture made telling where he had and hadn't been before somewhat trying.

Halfway through, the ghosts of furnishings appeared, and he found that he always started off in the same bedroom. All the furniture was in greyscale; he could tell it was the same room only because of the placement of the furniture. The bed had been made while he was out. Sometimes, he didn't leave the room (he shouldn't _have_ to), instead lying down on the four-poster bed, staring up at the canopy.

But soon, that struck him as a waste_—_he was lying down in a cramped cupboard in truth, and while he greatly enjoyed the feel of a soft bed under his back, he knew that it wasn't real, and its effects would not carry over. Why waste time daydreaming when he could do _that_ out in the waking world? It was almost Christmas, after all, and his aunt and uncle (and even his cousin), were paying him less heed than usual_—_not because small mercies were in the spirit of the season, but because they were too busy buying presents for Dudley.

No, his time was better spent wandering the palace some more, now that he had a way of telling the rooms apart. He'd already memorised its every twist and turn, but now, he could put function and name to the other rooms of the palace. Shame that everything was grey, though.

New Year's Day brought a nice surprise: grey _people_, wandering the halls, or standing still (on guard, Harry decided). None of them noticed his passing, and he couldn't speak to any of them. The guards might as well have been statues (they didn't even seem to need to breathe) but the other people_—_well, since he accidentally walked right _through_ someone (a little girl, he thought, with long, dark hair, tripping over her dress as she hurried off…somewhere. He didn't follow her)… well, he had the sneaking suspicion that _he_ wasn't there in truth.

Although he came to realise that the same day repeated, with the little girl following the exact same path, to the point that he learnt exactly when to step back and let her pass, by the end of the week, he never did follow her. He was much more interested in the two little boys out in the palace courtyard, probably learning how to defend themselves. Maybe Harry would learn something; who knew?

He had no idea who they were, or why he felt strangely drawn to them, as if they were his reason for being here at all, but he ignored that line of thought to watch them.

One of them was taller, and broader (about Harry's age, if Harry had to guess), with long hair (Harry shrugged; all the adults seemed to have long hair, here). He carried a hammer at his side. It was inscribed with strange symbols, and seemed to be faintly glowing.

The other boy was smaller, seemed much younger, perhaps seven or eight, with black hair, and a lither musculature. He didn't seem to have a special weapon, which was just as well; Harry found the hammer kept drawing his concentration when he should have been watching the boys being walked through sword training by an old man with hair that probably _was_ grey. He was uninteresting, though, so Harry paid him little heed.

He was too busy watching the two boys. Either their voices were very, very deep, or something was still distorting the sound, but they seemed to be spending quite a bit of time exchanging what seemed to be fairly light-hearted remarks_—_he couldn't see anyone's face, including theirs, but neither of them tried to kill each other. He imagined that they were complaining about the taskmaster, or something, or maybe some light teasing. He imagined that they were best friends_—_or maybe even family.

He shut down that line of thought. There was no way to know for sure, and it made him aware of a certain hollow area in his heart he hadn't noticed before. That craving for affection that is ordinary for children, but which Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had done their best to stamp out. _Freaks_ didn't _deserve_ notice.

They looked so _happy_. Harry tried hard not to compare the minuscule amount he knew about them to himself. It was a difficult task; he spent the week making up stories about who they were, what their connection to one another was. He forgot to watch the taskmaster. They were the reason he was here. They were the key. He was sure of it.

He assumed that he'd have more time to watch that scene, to watch that _day_. All the other dreams had seemed to last for a month, at least. But then again, there hadn't been any people, in _them_. Perhaps he'd been given only a week, each time, and hadn't _known_, without any way of measuring such time.

But starting January Eighth, everything shifted radically, _again_. He wasn't Harry Potter, anymore, in his dreams. He could never figure out who he was, exactly, which sounds strange, but his dreamscape seemed to still be developing itself. People's voices were faded and unusually deep, as a recording set to slow, their words dragged out in a harsh, low growling. And the people were still grey, all around him. But now, there was no weekly scene. Events from days and years apart were crammed together into the sleep and dreams of a single night.

Not that he knew that while he was sleeping. While he was sleeping, he was sure, he knew more than he remembered upon awakening. He found his way through the palace with casual ease, and didn't need to think about it, and he seemed to spend most of his time with the hazy figure of the other boy. But neither of them had a hammer, and no one carried any sort of identification. Harry-who-wasn't didn't escape the universal epidemic of low, drawn-out speech.

His dream self was one of the two boys, but they were both younger than they'd been in the repeating dream, and Harry, reflecting, recalled from somewhere that he'd heard that people seldom looked the same throughout their entire lives. Either boy could change a lot in those four or five years. Right?

Whichever of the two he was, he was shy, reserved, trailing behind the other, following him around, letting him decide what to do, and how it should be done. And the other didn't seem to mind a bit. Dream-Harry was content with the situation, just glad that they were close. There was a certain strong fondness towards the unidentified companion of Harry's dream-self that carried over even into the waking world, to _Harry_.

They spent much of the first day sneaking around the palace, with the other motioning for silence, holding him back from continuing forward, occasionally. If Harry had been himself, he might have complained that he'd spent a month wandering these halls, and was sure he could direct the boy wherever he needed to go (the slow-speeched people seemed to have no trouble understanding one another). But he wasn't Harry. He was the other boy, a boy with a different history to Harry Potter. With a less well-developed mind.

They managed to sneak around the palace without once being caught by a guard. Harry, reflecting upon the dream when he awoke, would wonder whether the guards hadn't just pretended not to see them_—_but then, why _would_ they have? Just who _were_ these boys?

It was as an itch that couldn't be scratched, consuming all attention with a _need_.

But there was something else, too. Harry cherished the dream, thought of how _comfortable_ the two seemed around one another. Thought of how _different_ their treatment of one another was from how the boys at school treated him. The boys…and Dudley. And the Dursleys. He had no memory from his waking life to compare it to. Everyone at home treated him with contempt. The boys at school were too afraid of Dudley to make an overture of friendship. He was alone, with no friends.

This was his first experience of friendship, or maybe of what a familial relationship _should_ be. There was no wariness, no rejection, no fear_—_there was no _bad_. To Harry, such a dream was more precious than all the gold adorning the palace walls. It made him wish he _were_ the boy, and not Harry Potter. If the dreams had been building up to this, then all the wait, and all the soul-searching he'd engaged in, had been worth it. Even for just this dream.

But it wasn't just that dream. There was always at least one dream per night, many of them quite ordinary_—_the boredom of being instructed in…_something_, what, he couldn't tell; there were no tools of the trade lying about to help him identify what he was being taught, but he recognised a teacher when he saw one, even if she _was_ a strangely youthful old woman in an old-fashioned grey dress (_was_ the dress grey?).

He decided it was probably a class on court etiquette when she gave a very formal-looking, deep bow.

Of course, if this were a court, then it was also possible that he was someone of some sort of importance, despite being a child, and she was showing him respect.

Nah.

At the end of the week, he was back in the covered courtyard, trying to wrap his chubby hands around the handle of some manner of blade. He was probably about five years old, which struck him as insane, when he awoke. Who lets a five-year-old anywhere near a knife?

Then, he remembered Aunt Petunia teaching him the basics of cooking when he was six. It was alright, then; no one in the palace seemed concerned, and the old man probably knew best.

In between the two dreams, he saw much of the other boy_—_or rather, he was often around; everyone was still grey and hazy. Dream-Harry went often to the library, a huge room with towering shelves that made Waking-Harry wonder how anyone reached them, and windows that flooded the room with light. The first time Harry saw the library, his dream-self was probably about the same age he himself was_—_a rare moment of coincidence. Whatever he was reading (it was a mess of strange symbols Harry didn't recognise), it was very interesting, sparking all sorts of new ideas and theories lost upon his awakening. Of course.

But he seemed to research, and read about, a number of different topics, some interesting, some boring. Sometimes his dream let him keep some basic knowledge of what he'd been studying_—_history, language, magic…wait, what? There was no such thing as magic.

There could be in dreams, though. Just as, in dreams, there could be friends, and family who loved him, and people who respected him, without him even having to do anything impressive.

It felt as if something in his heart were being filled up. Unfortunately, said part of his heart also seemed to have a hole in it, because the dreams left him with a strong longing for the palace, for his family, for his friends, for _home_. Number Four, Privet Drive had never been home to him. He saw that, now.

He missed them, all of the inhabitants of the palace, despite not having a single name to go on. He treasured the dreams, the only thing he had to look forward to. The teachers at school were no fonder of him _after_ New Year's than _before_.

He wished the dreams were real, that he was that boy, whoever he was, out there, somewhere, dreaming that he was Harry Potter, and would wake to go on adventures and have fun with…his brother, Harry decided. They were definitely brothers.

He remembered the dream in which someone had actually made him cry after one of those stupid training lessons with swords. An older kid had come over, probably to test out the new meat. He'd gotten away with it because this weird society thought that if you were beaten up, then you deserved it. A real man could fight, even a child, and prowess and skill were the only important things. They'd looked the other way_—_if Harry was too weak to defend himself, this would be a good lesson. The older kid had even gone easy on him.

But Harry's brother had disagreed, challenged the older boy, somehow won (perhaps because they were closer to being the same age, if Harry was the younger of the two; why couldn't he tell; that sort of thing should be _obvious_?) and had slung an arm around Dream-Harry's shoulder, leading him away from the battleground with a fierce glare towards anyone who looked their way.

They shrank back, and Harry didn't need an interpreter of growl-speech to know that the boy's tone was concerned, and that his words were "Are you okay?" in growl.

He said something suitably macho in reply, and the boy nodded, but was clearly still worried, and hauled him off to be looked over, even though he only had a single cut, on his arm, and it wasn't _that_ deep.

_This_ was what family was, Harry decided. What Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would never give him. What, perhaps, only his dreams could.


	2. Mother

The first time he saw her, he was in the library (a fairly common occurrence), studying a hazy grey tome that breathed age. He couldn't recognise any of the symbols on the page, which seemed to be good enough for his subconscious; it made no effort to distort them further. Dream-Harry understood them well enough; the overlap of their identities would have let him know if there were any confusion as to what the markings meant, the way they warned him of the latent frustration building beneath the surface.

A woman came gliding into the library as he worked, unseen, unnoticed by him, until something (who knew what?) caught his attention. Perhaps she made some small noise. But by the time she was approaching him, he had already set aside his book, as if bracing himself.

She was a woman who stuck in Harry's mind, would have if only for the fact that she alone amongst all of the grey people was colourful and vibrantly alive. She was quite beautiful, with long blonde hair pulled back behind her, and a very old-fashioned, bright blue dress that matched her eyes. She had a regal bearing, and moved with quiet grace_—_the illusion of frailty, delicate and graceful. When she spoke, he heard her voice, and could understand the words.

"Does something ail you, my son?" she asked, amusement laced in her tone. Waking-Harry would later be relieved to find that her voice sounded, for once, like that of an actual person. She had a very soothing voice, Waking-Harry would later reflect.

Unlike Dream-Harry, when he made his brief response. The woman (the boy's mother, _Dream-Harry's_ mother: imagine that!) laughed, and came to stand before him.

"Well, in such an old book as this, I am not surprised. Perhaps I might help you, instead. Your father and I both know a little about magic, and while it is different for every individual, I might provide some guidance, at least."

Longing and suspicion. Uncertainty. The boy's response was cautious, as if treading on thin ice.

She laughed again. "It is true that he is…disappointed, somewhat, that you do not progress as swiftly as he would like. I think he forgets how it is, to be young, sometimes."

The boy smiled, at this, but made no answer. "He would not begrudge you such learning, if I were to teach you. We all have different areas of strength and weakness. I think I might enjoy playing the role of the teacher_—_if you would permit your tiresome mother to intrude in your research, thus."

Distress. He made a hasty protest. Harry would have done no different, in his shoes.

The woman sat down on the other side of the desk, and smiled at him, a smile full of exasperated fondness, that lingered with Harry into wakefulness. Had anyone ever looked at _him_ that way? At Harry? But for now, he was engrossed in the dream, as Dream-Harry's mother gently pushed aside some of the books he had pulled from the shelves, clearing room, and making it easier for them to see one another.

"I have it on good authority that you have caused quite a bit of trouble, of late, setting carpets alight, and shattering heirlooms."

He hastened to interject a rousing defence on his own part, but she shook her head.

"Magic can be unpredictable, and is often tied to our moods," she said. "For those who have not yet learnt self-control, small accidents often occur, particularly in times of extreme negative emotion. Perhaps these accidents were caused by a certain…disappointment, at not finding what you sought for in the library, hmm?"

She smiled again, and leant back. "But they will do for a beginning of my instruction. And…well, I should say, first of all, that all Nine Realms are filled with ambient magic, as well as the magic in living things. Therefore, when we use magic, it can come of two different sources_—_from without, in the air, in the ground, and in artefacts_—_or from ourselves. There are some, such as your friend Heimdall, who can use magic through a conduit_—_the sword."

Harry did not understand the explanation when he awoke, but whilst still dreaming, he _did_, every word. He listened with rapt attention.

"Therefore, when using magic, it is always important first to know whether to use the ambient magic of the area, or to draw on your own magic. The latter will drain you more quickly_—_unless you have built up the stamina through much use. But the former also has its risks. Always know the _nature_ of magic that is not a part of you, _before_ you attempt to use it.

"For instance, have you felt the magic here in the palace? On the surface, as here in the library, it is filled with light and warmth. You have many associations here, with home. The magic of our world recognises you, and welcomes you to use its magic. To use the ambient magic of a world that rejected you would take greater effort and skill, and would still more the swiftly take its toll. Take a moment, now, to see if you agree with my description. What does the magic in this library evoke?"

He closed his eyes, obedient, appreciated the warmth and light streaming through the windows, the warmth of his mother's love, the age and wisdom contained within the walls. They were very like his mother, he decided_—_regal and proud, but still welcoming and wise.

While he was at it, he took a moment to sift through his memories of other places, categorising their different emotions. He'd felt it before, sometimes, but now he wanted to go through the whole palace, analysing every room.

He opened his eyes, and nodded. There was a certain sense of wonder and awe at the experience, a door opening into a new way of looking at the world. Was this the thrill others found in conquest? he asked himself. He could not help leaning forwards, slightly, before remembering proper posture. His mother laughed, and shook her head.

"Yes. I see that you understand. You feel it, as do I. And I suspect there is no need to tell you that different locations, and therefore different magics, lend themselves more readily to different works. Your father has filled the throne room with the warp and weft of destiny: power, raw, and therefore dangerous. And if you were to venture into the lower palace_—_where we have forbidden you to enter, with good reason_—_you would find that the air, the earth, the light there, is foul and corrupt. It invites in death and decay, and would drain away your energy faster than you could replenish it. To venture below with your own magical energy not yet developed would twist you into something unrecognisable, or even kill you."

He probably said something resentful at this point about _knowing, Mum, and I haven't gone down there_.

He'd never seen a lower palace in his wanderings. He wondered what she meant.

"And let that be a warning, also," she continued. "Do not trust the outward appearance of any world, for there are often hidden dangers in even the safest of places. Forgive your old mother for fretting over you thus, but you _do_ seem to have a knack for finding trouble."

He grumbled something else in reply.

"The safest course of action is usually to use the magic within you, but that is not always safe, or feasible, either. Hone your ability to sense the souls of the places you visit, and ask yourself what manner of magic might most easily be performed there, and what hidden dangers it might hold."

She stood, now, with the same grace with which she did everything else, and he said something else, trying to hide his disappointment that she seemed to have concluded the lesson. She paused, at his protestations, and bent to face him squarely.

"The secret to magic is desire, and focus. This is always true. By performing small acts of magic, you will develop those magical reserves that you will need to sustain greater works of magic. It is best to start with small goals in mind. Overuse of magic will tire you. It is very draining, at first, to use even the simplest of spells. But we may begin now."

The dream ended there, to Harry's frustration. He was now quite curious about how you started using magic, and although it was addressed by Dream-Harry's mother in a later dream, he wished that he could have heard it in that one.

Instead, he spent quite a bit of time with his brother (getting into trouble, he suspected), his brother getting into fights, and being taught how to defend himself. Despite not being able to hear the drillmaster's words, he suspected that he was nonetheless beginning to gain a picture of how to hold a sword, how to fight with one, or at least defend himself. He almost thought that he could bring a kitchen knife to school for the next time the bullies that were his cousin and his friends decided to beat him up. That was, however, a very bad idea, as he decided soon after he woke up. Magic, though….

Nah. Magic wasn't real. He told himself that firmly, but he still remembered the regal woman's comments on small accidents caused by intense negative emotions. Many of the freakish things his relatives blamed him for occurred when he was angry, or fleeing Dudley's gang. _Could_ it be magic?

* * *

He grew quite fond of the entire dream family, with an added dollop of wary respect for his father. Even faceless, he made an imposing figure, and filled Harry with a host of conflicting emotions_—_do you even love me? How do I prove myself? What do I do?

He was so austere, so remote. But there were times when he showed his approval, with a nod, a hand on the shoulder, even the occasional word of praise, that made Harry feel as if he were filled with some sort of buoyant luminescence.

This was what people meant, he decided, when they said that someone was _glowing_. It was this levity and pride. He had little occasion of it at the Dursleys, but here he had his mother's fond encouragements and proud smiles when he mastered something particularly difficult (the anachronic order of his dreams meant that he sometimes received _lessons_ in the incorrect order, although for Dream-Harry, his life progressed linearly; thus, it didn't matter).

Of the three members of his family, he was fondest of his mother, and of course his brother. He sometimes trailed after the other boy, with something of a reverent adoration. Although his brother had other friends, he always seemed to be able to find time for Dream-Harry, if he needed help. Perhaps, as he had heard people complain while out with the Dursleys, that would change, they would grow apart when one of them hit their teens, and entered "that difficult stage". For now, Harry basked in their camaraderie.

There was a sense of safety, security, belonging, amongst these people, and Harry hugged it close to himself, wished to vanish forever into that dreamscape, where he was wanted, even if it wasn't he who was wanted. Where he was _loved_.

By the end of January, he had quite_—_what was the phrase?_—_quite _fallen in love with_ the lot of them. Even the forbidding figure of Dream-Harry's father had a special place in Waking-Harry's heart. How could he not, when on his worst days, there was more of compassion and understanding about him than the Dursleys at their best?

He cherished these dreams, looked forward to them, held onto them as best he could, although often the substance of them slipped away as he entered the waking world. But even at noon, sitting alone with his lunch, he could still remember the vague forms of his dream-family, the radiant beauty of his dream-mother, her gentle, silent strength.

It was almost a disappointment, therefore, when on the night dividing January from February_—_on the night of January Thirty-First_—_he dreamt not of the palace, but of a quiet cabin in the heart of a woods.

His dream began with him standing outside a wooden door, hand poised to knock_—_or perhaps to reach for the knob and enter, or just to reach out and touch the coarse grain of the wood. He hesitated, and then reached for the knob. If he couldn't have the palace, he wanted to know what dire emergency had caused his subconscious to forego it. He thrust open the door with some violence, on account of what he would not admit to himself was hurt and disappointment.

He entered the little log cabin, which was bigger inside than out, and looked around at the wood-paneled walls, at the cosy-looking sofas and armchairs ranged around a low-set wooden coffee table, at the cupboards he could see hanging from the walls of the kitchen.

He moved towards the wooden stairs at the far side of the room (the house had not seemed big enough for a second storey, from the outside), but before he could gain half the distance, a form rushed him, and warm arms wrapped around him, murmuring something indecipherable over his shoulder. He flinched, and tried to pull away. Touch never boded well_—_not unless he were in the palace, being someone else.

The figure seemed to notice his distress, and withdrew, unfolding her arms, and standing back, that Harry might the better see her. She was much taller than he, being an adult, with long, fiery red hair, and bright green eyes. Something about that description gave him pause. Her eyes_—they're __just like__ mine_, he thought, _just the same shape and shade_.

"My son," she whispered, kneeling down before him to put them at eye-level despite his shorter stature. "Oh, my beloved child. What have they done to you? What makes you shrink from your mother?"

He noticed tears in her eyes, and paused, reconsidered. He'd never seen a photograph, had no names to go by, had no way of knowing whether this woman was who she seemed to be claiming to be. But he _wanted_…. The depth of his desire astounded him.

"Who are you?" he demanded, refusing to yield to hope, to longing, he fixed her with his best unreadable stare, and her eyes turned sad, and wistful.

"I am Lily Evans, the erstwhile wife of James Potter. I am your _mother_, Harry. Please…."

"M_—_Mum?" he asked, scarcely daring to believe it. Surely, it could not be. This was a trick, an illusion.

A dream. And anything might happen in dreams.

"Harry, my son, how can you not recognise your own mother?" she wiped tears from her eyes as they started to fill again. "When I knew that I could see you again—could be not completely absent from your life, though these be but dreams—I had not expected such a reunion. Harry, my son…why do you fear me?"

"I'm not afraid of you," Harry said, crossing his arms in defiance. She took a step forwards, and then another, and he forced himself not to draw back, not to retreat. This was his mother. He could trust her, if anyone. His _mother_. Or an illusion of her.

She gently wrapped her arms around him, again, and he flinched, but didn't draw away, this time. He hesitated, but then wrapped his arms around her, clinging to her as if she were the only thing standing between him and a bottomless pit.

They stayed that way for several minutes, as warmth that came only from his dreams permeated his entire being, and then she let him go, again, and stood. He stared at the hem of her bright green dress, unable to look her in the eyes. Never before had anyone shown _Harry Potter_ such affection. Not in his memory.

A delicate hand appeared in his vision, and he looked up to see she had bent over to extend a hand to him.

"Walk with me. Tell me of your life these past nine years, my son. I have much to speak with you on, but that can wait. There are many secrets that I must keep from you, for only a few more months. But for tonight, walk with me. Tell me of your life. Tell me everything."

He looked up, amazed at the genuine warmth and care he could almost feel radiating from her in waves.

"Are you real?" he asked, and she laughed.

"Here, in the boundary between reality and delusion, does it matter? But I am realer than you might expect, my dearest child. Come with me. I will show you the gardens, and you will tell me of your life, and we will come to an understanding. Come."

"Why are you keeping secrets from me, then? Am I 'not old enough to know'?" he asked, bitterness leaking into the recitation of the familiar excuse.

"No," she said, and there was a pause, stretching out the power of that single word, its simplicity, before she continued. "In a few months, you will be introduced to James's world. It will be a pleasant surprise for you, and I would not take it from you, but also…." She sighed, and bowed her head. "There will always be those who will judge you, and appearances are very important; even in that world, there are politics to consider, and power games. I doubt you could muster the genuine shock you would need in your response, as if you truly had no knowledge of that world."

He was mollified, somewhat, despite the implication that he would not be able to fool…someone, into thinking his surprise was genuine. It seemed to imply a lack of skill, or of intelligence. But she had, at least, said that she was not keeping secrets on account of his age. His mind wandered to other mysteries.

"Where's Dad, then?"

"James could not be here," she said. "I feel certain he would have come, had he been able."

"And why did he not come?" asked Harry. "Why couldn't he be here, too?"

_How very greedy of you, Harry_, he told himself, but it stung, the thought that perhaps his father didn't care.

"James and I are very different, with very different abilities. A strong cord binds you and me together, stronger than merely the bond between mother and son, or rather, a strengthened version of that bond. When I died, I lived on in your blood. I will explain further, later. This will not be the last time we meet in your dreams."

Her hand was still outstretched toward him, showcasing an endless reserve of patience. Something about her reminded him of his other mother, and that made him feel safe in her presence. He took her hand, and she raised him to his feet, leading him to the far side of the room, past the stairs, to a little room beyond, where another door led back to outside.

For hours, they walked amongst the flowers and vegetables of Lily's garden, and at last, Harry, reassured by the lack of judgemental criticism when he told her of the small revenges he'd had on Dudley's gang, before fear had driven away that confidence, spilt his heart out, telling her about his treatment by the Dursleys, how Dudley always received the best gifts, and Harry made do with hand-me-downs and castoffs, donations for the needy. He watched as her face darkened with terrifying fury, and shrank back, cautious again.

"Ah, Petunia, how could you behave thus towards your flesh-and-blood?" she demanded of the empty sky, and he slowly realised that she was angry not _with_ him, but _for_ him. A crackling, vengeful warmth emanated from her, but he knew that it would not burn him.

"Mum?" he asked. She smiled at him. She had such a beautiful, sweet smile, and it was just for him. Another memory to cherish, to hug close.

"It is almost time for us to part, love. But, hold fast! You will see me again on the night of March Thirty-First. The magic that binds us together is strongest near times of transition. February has but twenty-eight days, when the magic requires at least thirty, but March is not such a month, but it also holds the Vernal Equinox, the transition from winter to spring. Hold fast, my son! We shall meet again, then, and _I_ shall tell _you_ some things. Know that my love and protection are always with you."

Even as he reached for her, the world faded out around him, and he awoke to the darkness of his cupboard, hot tears streaming down his face. The machismo of the other dreams was too hard-engrained in him, by this point, for him to do anything but swipe at his eyes and look around as if to see whether anyone had noticed. But he was alone, of course, in the utter dark of his cupboard.


	3. Just Give Me a Hint!

The next night, things were very different, again. As if the dreamscape palace had taken the opportunity afforded by Harry's absence to do some remodeling, Harry returned the next night to find everything awash with bright colours (and not-so-bright colours). No longer grey and vague, the people of his dreamscape now wore armour, and fine clothes of what he might mistake for silk, satin, velvet, or brocade. Their faces were still blurred, but the lack of greyness was an encouraging sight, particularly since he could now also discern individual words_—_the speech of all, and not only his mother. The furnishings had also gained their own colours.

He noticed quite a bit of green around his room, and that red seemed to congregate around his brother. Oh, well. He supposed that they were chromatic opposites, to match their rather different dispositions. It made sense, at least according to dream logic, which knowledge he had received (along with the old wives' tale about dying in your dreams) in the waking world, from overheard conversations, and pseudo-Socratic seminars. Dreams operated in symbols, although these dreams seemed unusually direct. Less of dreams, and more of…memories.

What metaphor was there to be seen in his mother's lessons in magic, or his father's hard-earned approval, or his brother in trouble, yet again (try as he might, Harry's attempts to talk him out of _getting_ into trouble, both before and after the fact, were often vain)?

He wished that he could wander the dreamscape again, with it empty and free for him to explore, now that he knew that it had an underbelly, now that all was in rich colour, and perhaps if he were a lucid dreamer, he might have, but he was trapped in his dream-self's mind, and that dream-self never considered that this might all be unreal.

He was too busy, now in his teens (Harry assumed, although it was difficult to tell, as his dream self never seemed to feel the need to primp in front of a mirror or examine his reflection, nor to dwell upon his appearance or age).

The first few dreams after the sudden introduction of colour and voice were quotidian, as if to allow him to acclimate to this new layout. It made the entire affair seem that much realer, made it that much more the difficult, to leave. He began to consider that he might have, somehow, opened his mind to an extant other _world_.

Just give him something, a name of place, a location that he could research, and even if it were in Africa or (heaven forbid, _the Americas_), he would find his way there, though it mean traversing perilous desert or jungle. He owed it to these people, at the very least, to let them know that they were being watched, but more than that, he felt that this was where he truly belonged, and, although he might not _be_ the boy in the dreams, still the inhabitants might be prevailed upon to allow him to stay. Just give him something, _anything_, to go on, he thought.

And he began to pay heed to the feelings imbued in his surroundings outside the dreams. He found that what his mother had called _magic_, or _soul_, was mostly absent from the industrial, modern buildings, stamped out entirely in Privet Drive. It could still be found, here and there, especially where nature flourished, and in old, semi-abandoned areas, such as the old playground near his house. Perhaps it was because of how many children had built dreams there.

He did not spend much time anticipating his mother's return at the end of March_—_that was two months hence, a long time from now, and besides that…well, that dream was an anomaly to his already anomalous dreamscape. It would most likely not happen again. And if it did…well, he would take that as it came, and not dwell on it before, lest he taste bitter disappointment, again.

He worked on his homework with only half of his attention, paid only half as much heed to his school subjects as he ought. What was the point, when he knew that the Dursleys disliked his success in school, actively encouraging the ignorance of Dudley, and then glancing at him as if to ask, _Why could you not be more __like__ Dudley_?

Who would _want_ to be like Dudley? That was the better question. Rather than chase after the futile, errant, and self-destructive dream his aunt and uncle lay before his feet, he turned his steps instead to the desires and values of his dream-family, which, if a bit suspect, were nevertheless much superior to those espoused by the Dursleys.

He noticed that there were now fewer dreams in which he was five and six years old; now, he was usually in his double digits, same as he was in real life (or merely in the waking world?). Perhaps such childhood memories were so far distant that they were responsible for the vagueness, and lack of colour, and now that he could see and hear, his dreams were moving him onwards?

Names, however, were rarely used, it seemed, at all_—_at least to refer to him and his brother. When they addressed each other, it was almost always with that exact word: brother. Their parents called them "my son". It was as if proper names didn't exist in this place. He almost considered the idea that their names _were_ "brother", or translated to such. He was that desperate. He knew the names of Sif and the Warriors Three (each and every one of them, although he spent little time with them; they were his brother's friends, and they paid him little heed). But his brother's name, and his own? He didn't even know how many _syllables_ either was. Perhaps this was a strange society where you had to first prove yourself, before being given a name.

At least this way, he learnt that he and his brother were in fact princes. That was _something_ to go on. He knew only because the occasional lord or courtier or servant would address them with such phrases as "my lord", or "my prince". Then, truly his mother was a _regal_ woman, and his father was distant in the manner of men of power. Nothing strange there. That his father seemed slightly less distant, and much more approving, of his brother meant either that his brother was the elder of the two (the "Crown Prince", the phrase was, the _heir_), or that he was just the favourite. Judging by his mother's behaviour, it was the latter. The man might not even _realise_ his favouritism, which was a sobering thought.

Still, there was much to learn about this place, now that he could understand people's speech. He wondered if this was how babies felt, when learning to talk. Did they find it this rewarding, when they at last stumbled over their first words, and could make requests?

Well, at least he was progressing well in combat. He knew that he was putting in such effort only for two reasons. The first was to gain Father's approval (an arduous task, but worth it), and the second was to keep up with his brother. If they wished to continue spending their time together, then sooner or later it would come to combat. His brother was quite fond of the rush of battle, and he and his friends seemed to seek out danger, dragging Dream-Harry, half-reluctant, along for the ride. He needed to be able to fight, that he not be a liability.

Despite this, he did not seem to appreciate Dream-Harry's efforts very much, which caused a bit of friction between the two, and almost caused a _real_ duel to break out of the first sparring match where Harry managed to best his brother in combat. Even in a battle of blades, Harry's brother had always before been the victor. Harry was about to say something to the effect of, "Well, now, Brother, am I a worthy companion for your company?", but he saw the expression on his brother's face, the shadow of jealousy that he sometimes recognised in himself, when it was his brother, and not he, recognised by their father. But this…this was _wrong_.

The drillmaster's words were oddly distant. He glanced over to his brother, where he had turned away. He had to think fast, but he knew that he could say something, do something, to save his brother's pride. He could guess at his brother's turmoil. Almost he had forgot: combat was _his brother's_ specialty, and not his, the skill he was most admired for, and that with cause. How would he himself react, then, if his brother had bested him in a competition of magic? And such a delicate ego, wasn't it? His brother's pride so easily injured. But he could fix this. He could. He glanced around at the audience, those who were also of age to train to defend themselves, and their land.

"Now, friends, it is surely not a strange affair for my brother to lose a fight, if he does not fight with his all. I am sure he went easy on me."

There were murmurs of agreement at this, and internally, he smiled. The people, even those who did not know the prince personally, were always swift to rally behind their father's favoured child. He could see them rearranging the event in their minds.

"No," said his brother, at last looking up, sword sheathed at his side, he stood from the bench that sat at the edge, meant for spectators, or those awaiting their turn in the mock arena. "No, that is not true. I fought as well and as fiercely as ever I do. Do not make light of your achievement, my brother. Truly, you have proven yourself this day. You fought well, and did credit to our family."

That shadow was gone, his brother's smile genuine, the tension broken. Harry _glowed_. What did he care for combat and war? But to have this ability, to make joy where there had been sorrow, to soothe quarrels and mend bridges before they broke…this was a power in its own right. He had not properly seen that, before.

His brother was a man of action, fine. But _he_ was a man of words, and words bred action. And today, they had avoided…something bitter. Something _wrong_. Something he could not yet name, but sensed was not yet gone, not yet defeated, it slunk away to lick its wounds, but it would return. Such a feral beast. But, for now….

Perhaps there was a lingering question of how it was that Harry had won this time. Harry smiled at his brother, basking in a sense of accomplishment, and in the usual glow of rare approval. No one could say he was dead weight any longer. Even Sif gave a nod in his direction.

"But, I will say this besides: the sword is not your best weapon. Had we fought with our best weapons, you would surely have won."

More nods.

"And you think that I can best your magic, Brother?" asked the other, with sudden intensity. He leant forwards, lowering his voice, as if sensing that the shifting mood of the crowd was Harry's second victory. "I think not. You have done well. Father will be pleased. I will see to that."

* * *

The dream he was waiting for happened in the third week of February, in the heart of winter. It was very brief, but struck such a powerful chord that it was seared into his memory. In that dream, he and his brother were young—once more about six or seven. Well, there went that theory.

He and his brother stood at the edge of a broad, odd path, coloured in all the hues of the rainbow. To either side, and below, was infinite darkness, dotted with pinpricks of light. _Stars_.

He swallowed, looked down, and glanced away, at the bridge's guardian, a man in gleaming armour, bearing an ornamental sword. Or perhaps not ornamental, in the way even the fanciest objects in this realm seemed to have practical functions.

Their mother came up behind them, resting a hand each over their shoulders.

"Lady Frigga!" cried the bridge's guardian, as if startled by her sudden arrival.

"At ease, Heimdall," she said, as the man stood at attention. "This is very important instruction, and I thought it best that I explain such a serious matter, myself."

She turned back to them, bending low behind them. "Through this bridge, we are able to cross over to the other realms that are under our governance and protection. Heimdall governs its function, and when the day comes when it is time for you to travel to other realms, he shall assist you. For now, look at the bridge_—_is it not a wonder? No other realm has such a gateway!"

"It is beautiful, Mother," Harry's brother agreed, turning round to smile at her. Harry had to agree. Tiny pinpricks of crystalline shards seemed to make up the path, forming a million prisms reflecting each a single hue. Beautiful _and_ useful, as everything in this world was.

"_But_," she continued, and her mild voice turned stern. "It is also dangerous. You should not stand so near the edge, for there is no barrier to keep you from falling into the void below."

The void. Harry looked down, again, as if he couldn't help himself, and shuddered. He took an involuntary step back. The void was cold, terrible, but beautiful in its own right. It seemed to call to him, and he wrenched his gaze away, and spun around to face his mother. The hand that had been on his shoulder rose to rest on his head with reassuring weight. He hadn't realised how tense he'd become until he began to relax.

"We often travel over this bridge. It is not the only way amongst worlds, but it is the most reliable. But lest the more reckless of us_—_" Harry was sure she turned to his brother, who was starting to fidget, "—decide that they _must_ see the other realms for themselves, it seemed prudent to offer a preventive warning."

His brother seemed to realise that he was being spoken of, and stopped fidgeting, briefly, to bow his head.

"But fret not, my sons, there is no inherent danger in the bridge. You are safe."

The dream might have cut off there, or it might not. Sometimes, scenes, and parts of scenes, still vanished from Harry's memory as he woke. Whatever the case, he was fairly sure that it was the last dream he had before he awoke. He lay there in the cupboard, ignoring the pounding against the cupboard door, or Aunt Petunia's mounting frustration, to try to engrain every detail in his memory.

He had heard names—two of them. Neither his nor his brother's, but his mother now had a name, and the guardian of…a bridge. Formed from a rainbow, or with that appearance, anyway. How many bridges could there be in the world made of rainbows?

Then again…. He thought back to the void, spangled with stars, with even greater unease than during the dream. A sliver of foreign dread stole up his spine, at something he knew he didn't remember. Yet.

Had that been…outer space? His teachers told him that science could do some pretty impressive things these days (just look at Tony Stark's weapons empire; it was alarming!), but he was pretty sure that people couldn't build high enough to reach space, yet.

Had his dreams taken place in another _world_, all along? _Was_ there any way of finding that palace, if it indeed existed?

* * *

Harry spent the entire school day planning out what to do next. The obvious next step was to go to the library, and….

How did you go about using a library, anyway? Well, maybe he could ask a librarian for help?

He thought over the entire plan, sitting through classes paying barely any heed at all to his teachers, focused on much more important matters. Over and over again, he went through that dream in his head, despite by now being sure that it would not vanish, if he had reached school and it still seemed intact. His mother's name was Frigga. Heimdall was the guardian of the rainbow bridge.

These two facts (three) were vital to remember. Far more important than the significance of…whatever they were talking about in school now. Maybe his teacher would know more? But he wasn't making a very good impression, was he?

He paused to pretend to write down some more notes. Dudley gave him a stink-eye from a few seats ahead and to the right. Oh, well.

Right after school, he gave Dudley the slip, and pulled out the rudimentary map to the library he had made instead of eating lunch. It had been difficult to find a teacher who didn't recognise him, had not already had their thoughts towards him poisoned by the Dursleys. But he had done it.

He hadn't dared to broach the topic of his subject of research, and the man hadn't asked, as if sensing that he'd rather not share. Probably thought it was something to do with "growing up and becoming a man". Something embarrassing. Harry shamelessly took advantage of this fact. Even _had_ he not thought the entire subject dangerously reminiscent of a descent into madness, he wasn't sure if he felt like sharing the dream palace. And it seemed a bit…childish. Weren't children's games of make-believe all about pretending to be royalty and living the good life?


	4. A Trip to the Library

He trudged through the lonely streets in silence, barely noticing anything, paying the utmost attention to his map, and to the lingering memories of his dreams. He didn't stop, although he wasn't used to walking for this long (Aunt Petunia did not want him to stray far from the house. Possibly to ensure that she was the sole witness to any bouts of "freakiness"), until he stood before a low, brown building of few windows. Letters hung from the lintel above the door, huge so as to be seen from a distance: Whinging Public Library, Little Whinging Branch.

He pushed open the door, stamped the snow out of his shoes on the carpet, and strode into the library, for the first time in his life.

There were quite a few bookcases here, but the grandeur of the palace library could not be rivaled. He found himself feeling oddly… cheated.

He looked around at all the shelves full of books, and knew he had a problem. No amount of planning would have been sufficient for this. His eyes alit, at length, upon a sign suspended from the ceiling hanging over the front desk, which bore that same label. As good a place to start as any, he decided, and walked towards it.

He was well aware that, owing to his small stature, adults often mistook him for a much younger child. He was used to being talked down to, as if he were only five or six. There was only a brief flare of irritation when the worker at the front desk, a woman with curly brown hair, probably in her mid-twenties, set down her book as he approached, with an indulgent smile.

"Ah, hello," she said, and at least her voice wasn't patronising. "Welcome to Little Whinging Public Library. Can I help you find something?"

Harry decided that he loved librarians. No need to beat around the bush (although she probably just wanted to return to her book). He wasted no time in summarising the situation in a frantic rush.

"Er_—_My name is Harry Potter, and I'm looking for a book, but I don't know where to start. I only have today to look for it, really, and I'd like to find something before the library closes, because I don't have a library account, or anything, and my aunt and uncle don't approve of reading, so I don't want to take any books home in case they damage them. I've never used the library before, but maybe you could help me find books on someplace_—_I don't know much about it, just that there's a bridge made out of a rainbow, and_—_"

He frowned, reconsidering the wisdom of mentioning his mother, and Heimdall.

"Oh! Are you talking about the Norse myths?" asked the woman. "Heidi knows a lot more about them than I, I think. She'd never forgive me if I let anyone else introduce an interested party to them. They're quite fascinating. Hold on a second. Heidi!"

She said all of this very quickly, leaving Harry with the sense that he might have just been hit by an oncoming train. What? What? What? What was going on, now? Norse myths? What was the woman talking about?

A much older woman came striding from a room behind the woman at the front desk. She was rather older than the first woman, and she wore circular glasses. He stared at her. Unlike the younger woman, this one looked just as he had expected an old librarian to.

He realised that his thoughts had wandered only when she tutted, snapping, "Well, come along, then, we don't have all day!"

He followed her in obedient silence through a maze of bookshelves, with her occasionally pausing to glance at a book.

"Ah, here we are. I suppose you're too young to have been instructed on the Dewey Decimal System, and the card catalogue."

Was he? Or had the Dursleys merely ensured that he had somehow missed those lessons? No, surely even they wouldn't go _that_ far, would they?

"These books might be too advanced for you, but_—_"

"I won't know unless I try," he said, taking the books she offered without glancing at them. They were a bit heavy, but he was used to heavy lifting; shoveling snow was only one of his many chores, and not the most strenuous. She lifted an eyebrow as she set a few books on top of his armload, and he still didn't make a noise of protest. She carried a book or two more, herself, over to a niche filled with tables and chairs. Harry hadn't been able to see it through a bookcase wall until they'd rounded the corner, and there it was. He set the books gently down on the table, and she added the last couple to the side, where he could reach them without having to stand on the chair, or something.

Perhaps she had meant to, but she did not disappear. Instead, the younger woman came over to find them, making Harry feel a bit of an exhibition.

He opened the first of the books, glancing upwards with an inquisitive tilt of the head, but he was too polite to ask why she was still there.

"Ah, that book is rather simplistic," the old woman said, "but it gives a useful summary, and tends to be more…popular with children." In other words, it was simplified, and had plenty of pictures. That was fine. He had been looking for a brief synoptic version first, anyway, to check if he were even on the right track.

"Thank you," he told her. "You've been very helpful."

She did not, of course, leave. The younger woman went back to her desk, but, throughout the evening, periodically returned to check on him.

Harry glanced at the Table of Contents (he had _some_ idea as to how to use reference materials, if only on account of dream guidance), and skimmed the entries. Unfortunately, they seemed to reference specific myths, for the most part. Simplistic titles such as _Why Odin Wears an Eyepatch_, or _The Banishment of Hel_. Which looked as if it ought to be a typo. But at the top of the Table, on page _vii_, there was a family tree. That had the potential to answer some questions.

He turned to page _vii_, and then had to rotate the book ninety degrees to glance at it.

He started at the bottom, even though he didn't know the name of either him or of his brother. The entries in the Royal Family of Asgard, for the last generation, said, "Hel, Thor, Loki". "Loki"'s name had a dotted line connecting it to the genealogical line above it, which the legend said indicated an indirect relation_: _adoption, marriage, and distant descendants. Far too multipurpose, that.

He followed the main branch up from "Thor", instead, to Odin (the man from the myth with the eyepatch, hmm?), followed the solid line across to the second name.

Stopped. Stared. _Frigga_. There, in a book. Maybe, then….

Maybe he _was_ on the right track. He stopped, setting the book aside, and leant back, thinking.

_Three_ children of Odin and Frigga listed_—_or maybe one was a distant descendant, but he doubted it. Frigga looked too young…. The eldest child was banished_—_perhaps that was why Harry had never encountered him or her. That left _two_, for the two princes. Thor and Loki. Which was _he_? He didn't know. He couldn't tell. But there must be some way to learn. There _had_ to be. He was not about to quit now, not when he'd come this close!

"Uh…Mrs. Everett-Smith?" he asked, reading the older woman's nametag. She gave him an unimpressed stare in return. Librarians, Harry decided, were a bit alarming.

"Do you know where to find more about_—_do you know which of these books would be the best reference for learning about_—_" he stumbled over the unfamiliar names, even though they were simple, and he was staring at them on the family tree, "_—_Thor and Loki? And their family? And why does Loki have a dotted line_—_?"

The woman began sifting through the stack of books, setting some aside, in a frenzy of motion. Harry stared. The younger librarian giggled, recalling her to his mind.

Were they _this_ bored? _Or_ dedicated?

"These are _myths_, child_—_"

"My name's Harry Potter," he grumbled, and she seemed not to hear him, but ploughed right on.

"_—_and as _myths_, there are few agreed-upon details. The book you were just studying tells _one_ version of the myths, but the originals are quite old, and the Vikings did not leave us much in the way of a written record_—_" cue the waspish, sarcastic smile, "_—_and these myths have therefore been further influenced by the Christianisation of Europe. That is why it is so important to have this many books, as many different references as possible.

"For, see, in the book you were just looking at, yes, Thor is listed as the middle child_—_and elder son, of Odin and Frigga, but in _this_ one_—_" she pulled out a heftier volume, and almost _slammed_ it down before him. "Loki is the best friend of Odin, and unconnected to the royal family, and in _this_ one, Thor's mother is named 'Freya', and in _this_ one_—_"

He would never be able to keep track of which book said what if she kept piling them up in different stacks.

"I get the point," he hastened to interject. "Alright, then, where would you suggest looking for more information on Thor and/or Loki?" It was best, he decided, to narrow down his area of focus, for the moment. He could always expand it, later, as he got a better grasp of things, and learnt more information.

He was half-expecting a disapproving frown at his rudeness_—_he _had_ twice interrupted her_—_but instead, she ceased from her rearranging, and looked down at him from beneath her spectacles once more.

"As he is one of their most popular gods, you will find information and stories about Thor in just about any of these books. They will, of course, conflict_—_"

He had tuned her out, his mind caught on one single word: _gods_. Thor was a _god_? As in, the boy who was perhaps his brother (or he, himself), was a _god_? And did that make _him_ a god, too? Wasn't that a mark of hubris, to think yourself a god? But he hadn't known_—_he had had _no_ idea, until it had hit him just now. _Gods_. This merited much contemplation.

In retrospect, he should have suspected after she had started speaking of _Vikings_, who had all died out or something a millennium ago, but he had, unconsciously, just dismissed it as the events having taken place longer ago than he had originally thought. But, if what she had said were true, they _might_ have taken place long ago_—_and the characters in them would still be alive, looking much as they had, for most of them.

There were so many questions this new information raised, in addition to the one of hubris. Could these dreams be _real_? _Could_ he be the boy of the dreams at all, if said prince _were_ a god?

And what of Christianity? He'd celebrated Christmas, after a fashion, with the Dursleys. Their idea of Christmas had been a gift of some old hand-me-downs, and to keep him on his toes all day (as if the clothes were a reward), cooking the Christmas dinner, and keeping Uncle Vernon plied with (usually) scotch. But still…now the thought of it struck him as…strange. A god celebrating the birth of _another_ god, whose worship had caused him to cease to be worshipped? A _rival_ god?

_You're getting ahead of yourself, Harry_, he told himself. _Perhaps, the names are only a coincidence…._

But that defeated the whole purpose of his research, didn't it? If he couldn't trust that the information had _any_ relevance, then why not quit right now? He _might_ yet arrive home early enough that his punishment for being late might not be too severe. And yet, he stayed. He _had_ to continue. Perhaps, somewhere, he'd learn something that would prove this was all a waste of time, or the opposite, that this had been a worthwhile sacrifice. He wouldn't know unless he kept looking.

"_Gods_?" he interrupted, only about fifteen seconds after she had used the word herself. (He was a quick thinker, had _had_ to think fast, on his feet.) "They're _gods_?"

"Well, not really," said the librarian whose name he didn't know. "It's not as if anyone worships them anymore."

Harry was barely paying attention, feeling a bit faint at recent events, but he shook himself, and refocused.

"Yes, they're the old Norse Gods," said Heidi Everett-Smith. "That's why it's called 'Norse Mythology'. Honestly, children these days_—_"

He interrupted again (she seemed to respect that, or at least not mind), "And what of Loki?"

He repressed a groan when she shifted a few heavy tomes out from the middle of the original stack. "He features in quite a few different myths, but is most reliably to be found amongst your various sources in those myths concerning Ragnarök. Their version of the Apocalypse," she explained, seeing his flash of confusion. "I would start with those. It should give you a better groundwork with which to work."

"Thank you," he said, mind once again awhirl, struggling to process even _more_ new information.

She did not leave him alone, even still. Some corner of his mind that could concern itself with trivial things wondered if it were because he had admitted to not having a library account, and this meant he required greater scrutiny. Or maybe it was true, and he _did_ look a delinquent, as Aunt Petunia said.

He ran a hand through his permanently mussed hair, and reopened the first book, skimming down the Table of Contents for the word he'd just heard, uncertain as to its exact spelling, but trusting in his quasi-knowledge of the language (maybe) to help him out, although it had done him no good before.

He started with this book, as he admitted to himself, only because it was the one he _knew_ listed _Frigga_ as having two _sons_. Somehow, that fact made it seem more trustworthy, although he chastised himself for putting too much faith in an indirect source. Only his dreams were _truly_ trustworthy sources of information.

Fittingly, the tale of the end of the world was near the very back of the book. According to the book, Loki was the one to set Ragnarök. in motion_—_how, it didn't say_—_and then Thor saved the day, preventing the destruction of the gods by removing them to another of the Nine Realms.

He frowned. And not only because that phrase sounded vaguely familiar. He was staring at the pictures, as the children who read this book were meant to. Hel, the Goddess of Death from whom Asgard needed saving, was depicted as being a beautiful woman with long, black hair, the same as Harry's own, and a wicked, cruel smile. Thor, red-haired and blue-eyed, looked heroic in the hauberk and greaves the artist depicted him in.

And he bore a hammer, destroyed in the tale's beginning. Harry had forgot the hammer in the dreams, until now. Not that it mattered. That first dream, the only dream in which that hammer (Mjölnir, said the book) had appeared, had been the weeklong dream. The one before he'd become one of the princes. The hammer had not made an appearance, since, and he didn't know whether it belonged to him, or to his brother, anymore.

But Loki…Loki was _blue_ with red eyes. That was the first thing Harry noticed.

Not one of them was blond. And the only dark-haired among them was Hel_—_Loki was depicted as hairless. So much for _that_.

"Mrs. Everett-Smith?" he asked, without looking up. "Why is Loki so different from the others?"

She peered over his shoulder, he knew, in the same way you knew when you were being watched. It was a feeling. "Well, these depictions are the artists' imaginings of how the characters might look_—_it's called 'artistic license', child. If they fancy, if 'inspiration strikes them' thus, they can draw pictures rather different from what authors describe. But Loki probably _would_ look rather different from the rest of the pantheon, if he were real. According to this volume, he is the adoptive son of Frigga and Odin, the king and queen of Asgard, and the adopted brother of Thor. But in reality, he's a frost giant from the 'realm' known as 'Jotunheim'."

_Did everyone know that but I?_ a tiny voice whispered inside Harry's mind. It was probably whatever part of him most thoroughly overindulged in his dreams. Felt too strong of a connection. There had been no _hint_ of an adoption.

There had been no _hint_ of such! How could it possibly be? But was it true?

He frowned, puzzling over the new information, left reeling now for the third time in less than an hour. Life refused to give him a break.

"And the other myths?" he asked, reaching at last for one of the heavier volumes Everett-Smith had set aside.

"I think you might be able to discover that for yourself, Mr. Potter," said the librarian, not unkindly. He blinked, looking up at her, at last, as she finally left him be.

What was _that_ all about?

* * *

Several hours later, Everett-Smith and Forgot-to-Introduce-Herself had each stopped by several times to answer more questions, or, in the latter's case, to tease him about how long he'd spent researching (or to worry?), telling him that he'd need glasses if he kept staring at these books all day. Somehow, he doubted it. As far as he knew, no one in his family—either family—wore glasses. But he didn't contradict her. With the immediate shock over with, he set to absorbing as much information as he could, before seven o'clock hit, and the library closed.

Everett-Smith had been correct in assuring him that Thor featured prominently in all of the volumes he skimmed through. And his name, unlike the names of Frigga and Hel, was always the same. It was a reassuring constant. The courage of Thor was inspirational. It had Harry vowing, no matter who it turned out his dream-self was, that he would grow up to be just like Thor. A much as was possible.

Most of the other gods were much less consistently described, such as Hel or Hela, sometimes the daughter of Loki, sometimes the daughter of Odin, always a goddess having some association with the underworld, and with Fenris, or Fenrir, the great wolf (sometimes also a child of Loki). A couple of books mentioned also a third child, the Midgard Serpent.

None of these names or characters were familiar to Harry. But Ragnarök continued to haunt him. Had Loki already brought about the end of Asgard, and what he was seeing was, somehow, a memory of Asgard-that-had-been? Was it yet to come, or not to come at all? Who among the unfamiliar characters lurked, hidden still, in the backdrop of his dreamscape?

And, he admitted, as he helped the librarians put away the many tomes he had amassed during his research, what of the two princes? Neither of them hated Asgard, neither of them sought for its destruction (he assumed that Asgard was the world in which the palace lay). He could not imagine either having sufficient _malice_ to cause the dream-people _deliberate_ harm.

"It was nice meeting you, Harry," said the younger woman, with a warm smile, as they had finished putting the books back, and he was turning towards the door. "Please come back again next week. I'll teach you how to use the card catalogue. It is rare to find a child as young as you as passionate about reading."

He shrugged. Well, she probably thought he was six or seven years old.

"Thank you, Miss. For all of your help," he said, in lieu of a less polite reply.

He was almost to the door, when she called out, "Wait!"

Weren't libraries supposed to be places of quiet? He turned to face her, brow furrowed in confusion.

"You forgot your coat!"

This could be awkward. He shrugged, as if it didn't matter. He could tell the truth, and nothing would come of it, but he couldn't resist trying to call attention to the Dursleys'…_sketchy_ behaviour.

"I don't have one," he said, turning to leave again.

She probably thought he was lying, that he'd somehow forgot it, and didn't remember where, or something.

"You don't…have one…?" Incredulity oozed from her voice. "But…how are you going to get home? It's getting dark out…."

"I'll walk. I'll be fine; don't worry about me. I'm used to it; it doesn't really bother me."

That wasn't even quite the never-complain soldier mentality that Asgard had taught him, either. He didn't mind the cold that much, probably because he'd never had more than an old, worn blanket to keep him warm in his draughty cupboard, and the Dursleys couldn't be bothered with getting him winter wear.

Before she could make further comments, he strode out the front doors, again, not yet quite to the point of worrying about how the Dursleys would react when he arrived home after nightfall. They'd be furious_—_not out of concern for his safety, but rather because he'd spent most of his day free of their watchful eyes.

He foresaw at least a week in the cupboard, with no meals. But it was worth it. It had to be. Even though, as he was well aware, a week without food was the _mildest_ sentence his "family" might dish out, and in reality, he should expect far worse. He'd make it. He had his dreams of Asgard to strengthen and nourish him.

As he walked down the darkened streets, he pondered all that he had learnt and read today. Thor and Loki. Odin and Frigga. Hel, Fenrir, and Ragnarök. He still couldn't believe that either of the boys he knew (one of whom he _was_. Maybe.) would deliberately harm Asgard. Perhaps it was all an unfortunate accident.

Of course, there _was_ also the matter of Loki's adoption to consider. Not one hint had reached his ears, not even the barest _suggestion_, that either of them was, in fact, _not_ a royal prince born of Frigga. Perhaps…well, how would _he_ react, living such a privileged life, with respect, and love, and then to have that be revealed to all be a lie? All a lie, all along.

No, not how would _Harry_ react. How would the prince react, both raised always knowing support and love, taking it as a given, perhaps even for granted. Would he feel betrayed? Would he reject their love as a trick? Would he wonder why the secret had been kept from him, and long to meet his birth family? In what few books Harry had read, adopted children from whom that secret was kept usually reacted thus. Perhaps, that not-quite-innocent secret was the beginning of Loki's fall from grace?

At the word, _fall_, Harry shivered, but couldn't name why. It wasn't the cold of the English February night. It was something else, a glimmer of…memory? Falling….

He turned aside, and resolved to think on this more, later. Perhaps his dreams, themselves, would provide some answers.


	5. Thor and Loki

He _did_ continue to dream, but his dreams continued to be evasive. The entire rest of the month of February was spent considering whether or not he should pray for greater clarity in his dreams, and if he did, whom to? He was well-aware that this was not the usual sort of dilemma a preteen faced, but, for once, was past caring.

He wanted to have this whole thing sorted out, but his recalcitrant dreamscape refused to oblige. He spent his time in starvation locked in his cupboard, taking strength from his dreams of Asgard. One point of note was that, now he knew to listen for it, he _did_ occasionally hear the name "Asgard" mentioned_—_as well as Midgard, and Jotunheim. There were probably other names of other realms mentioned, but he hadn't encountered them in his books, and therefore didn't know to pay attention to them. Oh, well.

Although his dream-self was now in the difficult teens stage (although it probably wasn't _teens_; who knew how old _any_ of them truly were?), the family remained endearingly close. Dream-Harry _was_ perhaps drifting away from his brother, somewhat, as they each had their own interests, and Harry's brother's friends were sometimes…rowdy. There was a thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that his subconscious might be glossing over the more unpleasant aspects of Dream-Harry's life at this point. No family had _that_ few problems, after all.

And they might have a few skeletons in the closet. Such as a hidden older sister Goddess of Death or the Underworld. And Loki's adoption. Harry didn't care about Loki being adopted_—_he knew that that didn't matter_—_but he sensed that _neither_ of the two princes would react well to the news that _he_ was adopted. They didn't have ten years of life with the Dursleys to compare their lives to. They didn't know that complete strangers were completely capable of being closer to true family than those related to you by blood.

But as time progressed, and February turned to March, Harry's dream-self continued to slip further away from his brother and father (Odin?). Even as their faces grew clearer to Harry's mind's eye, their appearances became more sporadic, as if to make up for it. He missed that closeness, although he was reluctant to admit it to himself.

He was secretly perhaps a bit impressed that the dreams had managed an entire month of intelligible speech without _once_ using either of the dream princes' names. That was a remarkable feat. He was sure it was possible only because of Frigga's lessons in magic, continuing even with Harry in his teens (or…whatever passed for them). He could spend entire _nights_ with nothing else but magic, and his mother's instruction.

In that first week, it was the closest thing to nourishment he had. In the dark of his cupboard, he set to seeing what of his magic lessons he could bring into the waking world. That, too, could be evidence of the dreams' reality. And the Dursleys had left him with nothing else to do. He wondered what they'd told the school, to excuse his absence. He wondered how they continued to get away with their behaviour.

Remembering his mother's first lesson, he reached for the magic inside himself, rather than using the too-distant energy of the nearest place-with-magic he knew. It probably wasn't very smart, using energy when he knew that lack of food was already taxing his body, but he shoved any such concerns aside. He would start building up his magical reserves, if such existed, and he would follow his mother's dream-guidance, and he would teach _himself_ magic, if need be.

With this resolution in mind, he leant back against the hard, scratchy wood of his cupboard, and tried to ignore the discomfiture, because this was _important_. The lightbulb hanging overhead had burnt out a decade ago, and his aunt and uncle never had seen fit to replace it_—_what was the point? They couldn't be bothered, and, if Harry had ever suffered from nyctophobia, it had gone long ago. And yet…there was more that he could do in his cupboard, if he just had _light_.

Magic had been a matter of something like instinct, in his dreams. It came naturally, unpredictably, but could be tamed. He remembered how to reach for it, how to turn his desires into realities. That seventh sense, that located magic, had never quite shut, no matter how the Dursleys had tried to cut it off, and he knew how to find magic in himself. Draw it out, and as you drew, shape it into what you desired. Simple. Difficult. Everything either a raging success, or a colossal failure.

Light appeared overhead, and Harry stared at it, and smiled. Some reality there, then, after all.

And he continued to practice with what he remembered of lessons for the rest of his time of punishment. Their plan to punish him would backfire; he would see to that. He was careful never to work magic, or to have any magic-working up when the Dursleys came to check on him. Maintaining even the light overhead was difficult enough, at first, but as the days passed, he was able to keep it up for longer and longer, and then not to have to constantly pay attention to it, and then to do that and something _else_. But that took quite some time.

But, he had learnt patience, growing up with the Dursleys. He could wait.

Meanwhile, he lived only vicariously, in dreams. That would have to be enough for him. The Dursleys at length _did_ let him out of the cupboard, keeping him on short commons for another week, and things slowly returned to normal.

His hidden revenge was that his hair grew faster than usual in his imprisonment_—_long enough by the time of his release for him to tie it back, as the prince who was his dream-self sometimes did. He knew that it displeased Aunt Petunia, and knew further still that there was nothing she could do to stop him from doing this.

It was "accidental" magic_—_not that that would prevent her punishing him_—_but it was just barely realistic enough that she could not honestly say that she was sure that any magic had been in play at all. She'd already learnt that cutting his hair was a futile endeavour. It was not much for rebellion or resistance, but any little thing was _something_.

Harry considered going back to the library, again. He'd refused to tell the Dursleys whither he'd gone (part of the reason for the severity of his punishment, he knew), and thus was not yet forbidden from going to the library. Dudley would never catch him there. But he had to be careful. He had to plan well.

Meanwhile, he gathered data from his dreams. There wasn't that much to be learnt, for the rest of February, save for Frigga's ever-helpful magic lessons. His mother might not have known _quite_ how to teach him how to use magic, but she gave him a solid base off of which to build, and Dream-Harry's trials and experimentation with magic provided further fodder for Waking-Harry to work with.

He scrutinised the data, what little he could glean concerning Asgard, and the royal family, but there was little further to be learnt, with his dreams being stubbornly reluctant to show too much. And was that the operative word: "too"? He sometimes had the sense that his subconscious was trying to protect him from the inevitable blow that would come when everything fell apart, as, life being life, he couldn't help knowing that it would.

And the reckoning did come, but not in February, or even March.

When March came, he had half-expected to find that the dreamscape had shifted radically yet again. But it hadn't. Its inhabitants were marginally older, the family slightly more distanced from one another, and the two boys were probably about halfway through their teenage years. Had they been…you know, _human_. As it was, he had the feeling that they were each several centuries old, although _how_ many centuries, he couldn't guess.

Age did not seem to factor into his dreams. Mother remained young and beautiful, Father was perhaps prematurely wizened with age (and, as it turned out, he _did_ have an eyepatch, one of the few data gathered in February). And then, there were the two of them, always seeming about the same distance apart in age, it was impossible, still, to tell by looking who was older.

Both of them had graduated from instruction in combat, which meant that his brother often volunteered them for missions that would be considered a death wish for humans. It read a bit like the adventure prompts from one of Dudley's videogames: please go to town _x_, my lord, and save it from _y_. There were plenty of other people who might also have handled the situation, but somehow, it always fell to them, and his brother's friends. The _how_, he knew, was the other prince, himself.

And that was the _authorised_ expeditions into dire peril. You had to admire Heimdall's resolve, his tenacity, which enabled him to refuse a prince of the realm flat out. Harry's dream-self sometimes wished _he_ had that sort of nerve, and then realised that it wouldn't matter. If he refused to go, that wouldn't stop his brother, and maybe the idiot would get himself killed, and then where would everyone be? He tried reasoning, instead, which went over the other's head, and pleading, which rarely, but sometimes, worked, and saved that dread trick known as "telling" for truly foolhardy missions.

And if Father always knew that they'd gone haring off into danger, why didn't he stop them? Was he hoping that someday, they'd grow up, or did he only _feign_ omniscience, and in reality, he learnt of their absence only when it was too late to stop them? Perhaps one day, he'd tell them. If they lived long enough, and Harry was starting to doubt that they would.

And yet, he was rather grateful to these little adventures, because otherwise, he was sure, the dreams would have kept the princes' names from him, the "who's who", for at least another month. Everyone _would_ persist in calling him "brother", or "my son", or "my lord", and such, as relevant. It would take something a bit more _extreme_ to prompt an atypical reaction.

Or his dreams were deliberately keeping the information from him. Perhaps they censored out the names, or even replaced them with the more familiar phrases. There was a lingering sense that his subconscious was trying to shield him from some sort of forgotten trauma that would awaken once their true names were revealed. It did not bode well.

But it was inevitable, one way or the other. _The truth will out_, as they say, and Harry had the sense that, although the other usual "truth" saying was that _the truth __will__ set you free_, in reality, this truth was more of a cage of barbed wire. He sensed that he would not _like_ the answer, when it came. And that he would like even less what happened after.

And he was right, of course. Deep down, he probably already knew, if there were any _legitimate_ connection between _him_ and _them_.

It was an incontrovertible fact, such that even the Warriors Three, who did not like Harry, and took pains to make light of his achievements, could not deny it, that Harry's brother would have _died_ on that particular battlefield, had Harry not been there. The blow he took to his side was, despite Harry's quick action, hardly shallow, and Harry knew nothing of healing. Nor was it the only one.

He'd spent the rest of the battle at his brother's side, ensuring that he didn't do something _stupid_, such as rush the enemy (Waking-Harry never did figure out what they were; he suspected that they were some manner of giants, perhaps made of rocks, but his infrequent visits to the library were deemed better turned to other research).

With his brother out of commission, it fell to Harry to attempt to lead the others, whilst trying to prevent his brother from re-entering the fray, or moving and exacerbating his wounds, and trying to defend him from the enemy, who had scented blood.

"I believe we may be slightly outnumbered. Might I suggest a tactical retreat?"

His query fell on deaf ears. They were ignoring him, to a man. All except Sif, who caught sight of her friend's state, and came over to serve as a second bodyguard.

"Will he live?" she asked, her tone indicating that she understood full well the gravity of the situation. It made sense. As a woman, she would have been discouraged from entering combat situations at all, and therefore, had developed far less of the machismo that permeated Asgard's warrior culture. She might even be able to be reasoned with.

"This is no minor wound. He is still conscious, which is a good sign, but we must hurry, if we are to make good our escape. He does not have that much time, I think."

He didn't look at her. All of his attention was on his attempt to funnel magic out of his own reserves to the purpose of at least providing his brother with enough focus to remain conscious. He didn't know how to heal, and was unwilling to risk the possibility of exacerbating the injury.

"A war is rarely determined by the outcome of a single battle. If we accept that they have planned well for our arrival, and laid an ambush, and concede this battle, we might yet be able to save him. But we must leave _now_."

He could feel his efforts failing, and sharpened his focus, fixating upon the problem at hand. Somehow, she managed to recall the others. He would probably never know how. He had transcended the usual boundaries of awareness, until he had only a tentative grasp on the outside world. He was trusting in Sif to protect them both from danger, and doing his best to staunch the flow of blood.

The next thing he consciously knew, when the world returned to him, his hand was being gently removed from the wound by a presence so familiar he didn't have to look to see who it was. Which was just as well, because he would likely have attacked almost anyone else who tried to separate them, with his brother so critically injured.

"Peace, my son. He will live. I will not stop you, if you wish to stay, but be warned that healing is not always the most pleasant magic to observe, especially not when the injury is this severe. No one will think less of you if you leave. You must be tired. I can sense that you have supplemented his fading life energy with your own. Did I not warn you of the perils of such a choice?"

"What else would you have had me do, Mother?" he asked. "I feared he would die. I did the only thing I could think of or knew how to do to prolong his life, and even that_—_"

"Peace," she said, again. "Please, retire to your bedchamber. I will let you know when he wakes." Had his brother fallen unconscious, despite his efforts? "I believe he would prefer that you not see him in such a state."

He left the room, his brother's bedchamber, but he did not return to his own. He sat down outside the door, instead, and drew his knees up to his chest. His battle armour was marvelously flexible, which was just as well, because removing it would mean leaving to acquire a change of clothes more suitable for daily wear, and he could not even bring himself to leave for the brief period of time it would take to clean the blood from his hands. His brother's blood. Today had been an unmitigated disaster. But it would be well, in the end; Mother could do anything, could _heal_ anything.

He had the sense that he fell asleep outside his brother's door, waiting. Mother was right. He _was_ exhausted, but there was an unjust part of him that chastised himself for falling asleep before he knew that his brother would live. Never before had he been so aware that they could be killed, and injured, and bleed, as any other creature.

_The Midgardians call us gods_, he mused to himself, during the half hour or so between his taking up vigil, and falling asleep. _But then, they also tell tales of our demise. Are those tales __**real**__, then?_

His brother was too young to die according to the tales, but perhaps fate could be thwarted. He knew little else of the tales besides….

He jolted awake to his mother's voice, startling him from forgotten dreams, if gods dreamt at all. They probably did.

"Loki? Ah. Had I but thought, it would have been clear to me that you would not leave before knowing that he was well. They say that you are the more disobedient of my sons."

He shook sleep from his thoughts. "He will live?" he asked, knowing what she had said, but needing to hear the words again, to be _certain_.

"He wishes to speak with you," she said, holding out a hand for him. "You think too little of your abilities. I have made him understand the extreme danger and folly of his actions_—_these choices, at least_—_and he wishes to thank you."

He stood on his own power, and she reached up to rest a hand on his head, gently. "You have done well this day. Asgard and I both thank you, as well. I know you often feel…estranged. It is not easy, that your strengths lend themselves to different attitudes than those prevalent in our society. But understand that _we_ will always support you, including Thor, no matter how he might sometimes speak."

And then she opened the door, and gently pushed him inside.

You would never know that his brother had been wounded, but then, that was to be expected, he thought to himself. But for a certain unusual pallor, and the shaking of the hand he stretched out from his bed, you would not think Thor injured at all. Their mother was truly a skilled healer, which was just as well.

"Loki?" his brother asked, and Harry, without asking, took the wooden chair he knew his mother had just been sitting on. He hesitated to reach out, as if this were all an illusion, and if he touched him, his brother might _die_, after all.

"I'm here," he said, sitting down and crossing his arms loosely in his lap. "Mother said you wished to speak with me."

"You saved my life," Thor began. His voice was quieter than it should be.

"Do you seek for your own demise, Thor?" Harry demanded, recent concern emerging as anger. "We might have saved your life this once, but there will certainly be others, and you might not be so lucky, next time." He closed his eyes, leant back, straightened up, and redirected his attention, all before Thor could formulate a response. "And what is _my_ purpose, for you? Am I your bodyguard?" he added, seeing that his brother (the idiot) did not understand. "Am I your vassal? Am I your attendant?"

"You are my _brother_, and therefore my _equal_," Thor replied, his tone and expression surprisingly earnest. There was a hint there, the promise of a just and wise king, which would likely never be realised. Harry might have scoffed.

Instead, he leant forwards again, mindful of his mother, last seen standing outside the door. "Not for very much longer. Today made me cognisant of a very important fact: you are the Crown Prince, and someday, you shall be king. If you live long enough," he amended, thinking that this seemed an increasingly unlikely prospect. "And none could deny you have much need of a vassal, or a bodyguard_—_"

"When I am king, you shall be my advisor, and a king in your own right. I will see to it. You have told me that I am rash, and reckless, and do not think often enough before I take action. I would need your counsel more than ever, as king. There need not be such difference between us. I trust no one more than you."

He was not making this easy. Harry closed his eyes again, trying not to be affected by Thor's sincerity. This was an important lesson, one his brother seemed determined not to learn. He had almost _died_ today, and it would happen again, if it happened once. There was truth enough in one part, at least, of the argument of the Warriors Three: the enemy would be emboldened by their success, such as it was, today. They would know that the Asgardians _could_ be harmed, could be killed, could be defeated. Word would spread. Thor must _not_ go seeking out danger.

"It cannot be denied that you need much minding, and today it fell to me to be your minder. Perhaps, then, that is to be my lot_—_forever to keep you from doing yourself injury, as a nursemaid to a child."

Thor's fists clenched into the soft cloth of his blanket. Well, he was listening. Perhaps, if shamed enough, if driven far enough, the knowledge would stick, as it hadn't through lesser means.

Harry braced himself, and then continued. "Then, perhaps I should be your vassal, and your bodyguard, sworn to protect you with my own life." He stood, and then knelt on one knee, head bowed. Vulnerable the man on his knee, no weapon drawn to protect himself, no servant to defend him.

A worthy thought for such a time. It was just as well he couldn't see his brother's face. He wondered what the reaction to this turn of events would be.

"Then I, Loki Odinsson, Prince of Asgard_—_"

"Brother, no," Thor begged, his voice hoarser than it had been seconds ago. Harry ignored him, and ploughed on. Good. It seemed to be working. He was, at _long last_, making an impression as to the severity of the situation. Would it last?

He spoke louder, drowning out his brother's continued protestations. This was necessary, and worth it, if it worked.

"_—_do hereby swear my undying loyalty and allegiance, to Thor Odinsson, Crown Prince of Asgard, heir apparent to the throne of Asgard, to protect and defend him from all danger and harm, if it be within my power, to the cost of my life. I swear this on my honour as a prince of Asgard."

"Loki." Warning in the voice, now. "What have you _done_?"

"We were never equals, Brother, and your life is more valuable than mine. It is vital to Asgard that you _live_."

Perhaps, now, he would see. Harry stood, once more, to glance down at his brother. His face was twisted in pain, but, as Harry watched, he seemed to be levering himself up. What was he doing? What? What? What?

Thor threw down the blankets, revealing his usual, favoured outfit, all crimson and brown_—_very flashy, very noticeable.

He hissed in pain as he raised himself to his feet, and turned to face Harry, who could not, for the life of him, figure out what he was planning _now_.

"Brother, stop! Your injuries_—_!"

"Mother has seen to them," said Thor. "This_—_is important."

A ragged gasp interrupting his sentence suggested he was not as recovered as he was pretending.

"You should rest_—_" Harry began, but Thor waved him off. And _knelt_. Knelt, before his brother, before Harry, before Loki, the younger son, the unnecessary one, the spare. An inkling of an idea of what his brother was about crept into his mind. It felt unreal, too stupid to be true. Too clever to be Thor's idea.

"Then _I_, Thor Odinsson, Crown Prince of Asgard, do hereby swear my undying loyalty and allegiance_—_"

"_—_You can't_—_" Harry said, at a loss for words, for perhaps the first time in his life. This was _absurd_.

"—to Loki Odinsson, Prince of Asgard, to protect and defend him from all danger, and harm, if it be within my power, to the cost of my life. I swear this on my honour, as a prince of Asgard."

Impossible. Harry couldn't move. He just stared, for a moment. Thor dragged himself to his feet, as Harry stood, stunned, unable to move, only watching as Thor sat on the bed.

"You_—_you _can't_. I am your _younger_ brother. You outrank me_—_"

"And yet, you ignored my order that you cease from your oath-binding. Is that the behaviour of a vassal, or of a lord?"

…He'd underestimated Thor all these centuries. All this time, he'd never realised that Thor was not _actually_ the idiot he usually seemed, when he was out drinking himself under a table and fighting twenty foes at once. Harry was the one known for wordplay and tricks, and yet, here, Thor had _outwitted_ him.

Any previous feelings of accomplishment vanished.

"You_—_" he said, but he had no idea what the next word would be.

It was just as well that Mother entered the room then, although it left Thor the victor outside his usual arena.

It was just as well that that dream ended there, and that none of the others stood out enough to drown out that _one_. The final dream, as if the icing on a cake, was the dream of green light, and _badness_. An omen, a portent: danger ahead.

Harry stared up at the ceiling of his darkened cupboard, ignoring Aunt Petunia's pounding on the wood, as a thin line of sun tried to break in under the cupboard door. It died soon thereafter, its valiant efforts mostly unnoticed.

_Of course_, Harry thought, as numb as his dream-self had been in That Dream. Of _course_, even in his dreams he would be the outlier, the freak, the outcast, the _different_ one. He should have known, all along, that he would be Loki, and his brother would be Thor. Of course.

Even in his dreams, his family was an illusion. A nested, endless cycle of deception, illusion, and unreality. Harry Potter's life could never be otherwise—even in dreams.


	6. Trouble in Paradise

Harry took this revelation in the manner his dream-self—or he himself—would take a blow: he staggered back, and then tried to minimise attention paid to the afflicted area.

In this case, it meant trying to ignore his dreams, which was easier said than done, but increasingly necessary. You would think that the developments of the dream would change both princes' behaviour towards one another, with newfound respect for the other's love and dedication, or whatever. Instead, with agonising slowness, Thor's inability to stay out of trouble drove the two further apart—or at least, it increased Loki's resentment. Thor did not seem to notice.

His explanation for seeking out trouble had been that it was a way of proving himself a worthy warrior—worthy of the special weapon forged for him by the dwarves, the hammer Mjölnir. But, in reality, even his acquisition of said hammer changed little in his behaviour, and the hammer increasingly seemed an excuse.

And Harry—no, _Loki_—was always dragged along. And despite that, there remained a strong bond between them, one such as Harry had never known—or, if he had, it had been destroyed, sundered, long ago.

Unless it remained in his mother's bond with him. But did that even count, knowing what he now (sort of) knew about her?

For, as promised, she had returned at the end of March. The previous day had left him in sourer spirits than usual (another repeat of the dream of green light) and he had expected no reprieve. At the end of March, the dreams were already becoming more violent, harder to endure, more draining. He hadn't thought that tonight would be any different.

Yet, here he was. The cabin in the woods was surrounded by leafy trees. Flowers blossomed in the front yard, despite a complete lack of insects. Not one of them was wilted or dying. Even the best gardeners would envy the flowerboxes on the sills out front.

He threw open the door, and entered, mind still flooded with thoughts of his other set of dreams. Unlike last time, this time he welcomed the reprieve. He knew how to kill a variety of different beings, and for most of them, in a variety of different ways. He could fight as well as the princes with a blade, and knew several spells that would help in combat.

But none for healing. None for creation. None for _peace_. He might have mocked himself: _Here, before you would have rejoiced just to know that __**magic**__ was real; now you whine and whinge, that you know __**this**__, and not __**that**__._

That voice sounded a bit too much like Loki for Harry's liking. He ignored it, therefore, a bit resentful of the ingrate prince, who had a family who _loved_ him, but that was not enough. Harry would give anything, even still, to have even that fracturing family.

These were not fitting thoughts for him to have when he was about to see his mother—_Harry Potter's mother_—again. This was her cabin, built to her dreams. She had told him as much last time. No other would _dare_ to intrude upon this space.

And yet, he was unable to set the dreams aside. They haunted him in this one, perhaps more even than they did his waking hours, where there were pressing threats and issues to contend with.

Lily Evans, dressed in powder blue and violet, appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She wasted no time in rushing over to wrap her arms around him in a crushing hug.

"My son," she whispered, stroking back his hair from his face. "At last, we meet again. I have missed you, these two months." She smiled at him, such a gentle smile, and Harry wondered if this was how all mothers behaved—but, no, he knew that that was not the case. Aunt Petunia fretted and fussed over Dudley, but somehow…she didn't have the same _presence_, the same _glow_ about her actions and person as Lily.

Perhaps because Aunt Petunia was still alive. He envied Dudley, who could see his mother, speak with her, with either of his parents, whenever he wished. Even this brief span of time—a single night, every couple of months (was that the rule?), did not seem quite real to Harry.

"As your mother, it is my responsibility to disapprove of your choices in fashion," she said, with a falsely stern air. She laid a hand upon his head—the touch too familiar, too _known_—, brushing the bangs forward, so that they fell into his eyes.

"Agh! Mum!" he protested, and she smiled, but the smile stayed far away from her eyes.

"I cannot bear to see that scar, that mark, that tells me that you nearly died, that I could no longer protect you. I did what I could, and you lived, but much was dependent upon chance. Too much. When I see that scar…I am reminded of the day that James and I died. The night I almost _lost_ you, for all my effort and sacrifice. And there will be those who will stare at it, who will know your name because you bear that mark, and who will use you to their own ends. Keep it covered, my son, and you might find friends who will desire your company for your own merit, rather than judging you by rumour alone."

He could understand…at least a little, of that. Aunt Petunia had told him that he had received the scar in the car crash that had killed the rest of his family, but he hadn't thought that the sight would upset his mum thus.

"Sorry, Mum", he said. He made no attempt to brush the hair back again, mindful of her words, although it made it more difficult to see.

"I understand that you did not intend to cause me pain," she said, standing, and offering him a hand up. He thought of Frigga, and Loki, who was too proud to take the hand offered, and took her hand without giving himself time to think about it.

But would he spend the rest of this life comparing his actions to Loki's, and striving to be different?

Not a good way to go through life, he decided.

He let her lead him into the living room, nevertheless, to sit down, staring in silence at the fire, as suspicion of a different sort began to bubble up in him, given credence when she said,

"You will always be my most cherished son, Harry," smiling at him, as she glanced at him, just a tilt of the head, but so _dignified_. Perhaps _too_ dignified, for Harry in his state of heightened paranoia.

"Do I have siblings, then?" he asked. He had no idea how old she had been when she'd died. He might have had an older sibling for all he knew. Women had been known to give children born before they could care for them to foster care. It was possible.

"After a fashion," she said. "You might say that you had two brothers, or one, or none at all, depending on how you thought of the question."

There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if she weren't in the moment at all.

"How can _that_ be?" he demanded, crossing his arms, uncaring if that made him look childish. This was justified. It felt as if she were playing mind games, and that—

He cut off the thought before it could complete itself. How could he have _two_ or _one_ or _none_? Adoption, stillbirth, what? There was something he was missing, and perhaps the answer was in the visible radiance around his mother, her odd, halting way of speech, mannerisms so familiar they were etched deep into his memory.

He'd seen the similarity all along, but now….

_"Yes, you did succeed more _ _quickly_ _ than I expected! Well done, my son!" Frigga said, smiling _ _benevolently_ _ at him. "You are very talented. Your father and I are quite proud of you."_

_"Oh? But magic is not an art fit for a prince of the realm. It is why Father dotes on Thor, and forgets—"_

_"He does not forget you, Loki," said Frigga, her voice firm, but not reproachful. A hint of the wisdom and age she possessed showed in her eyes, as she stepped closer. "And perhaps Thor **is** Odin's favourite_ _;_ _ although a parent should never have favourites, it is often hard not to feel…more attuned with one child than another. And although your father avoids war, he recognises that it is inevitable, and that strength in combat is necessary to defend the Nine Realms. But—"_

_She leant forwards, towards him, as if sharing a secret. "If your father has a favourite son, perhaps I do, as well."_

_He said nothing. He didn't want to jump to conclusions as to what she meant. But, then, "Do you mean to say that Thor is also _ _ **your** _ _ favourite son? Is there no one who—?"_

_"No. Peace, my son. Do you wish to know why you would _ _be_ _ my favourite child, then?" she asked. "If, as a mother, I were made to choose a favourite? It is because you are _ _**not** like_ _ your brother. He may be the quintessential Asgardian youth_ _:_ _ strong, and fierce in battle, but he lacks restraint, wisdom, judgement. He lacks your patience, and also…I appreciate having a child to whom I _ _may_ _ pass on my knowledge of magic, who appreciates it even as I do. Loki, I would not change who you were, were it in my power. You are yourself. That is a good thing. And _ _personally_ _, I think Asgard has need of more _ _such _ _children."_

_He hadn't expected such a confession, even couched in hypothetical language, the gentle, subtle tilting of a scale. He had thought that everyone would think most _ _highly_ _ of his brother. Who would look at the younger son, the one who specialised in magic, next to Asgard's "quintessential youth"?_

Harry sprang to his feet, staring at the fire briefly before bolting for the kitchen. It was only a few meters (and a counter) away. He didn't know what he intended to do there, but cooking was a mindless task, the least back-breaking of the tasks the Dursleys set him to. Perhaps it would clear his mind, and help him to think.

He didn't _want_ to think, though, did he? _Suppose_, his thoughts would inevitably say, _it __**isn't **__mere happenstance? Suppose there is very good reason why your mother—Lily Evans, __ostensibly__—glows, and has a voice filled with inhuman warmth and resonance, and behaves in a way that reminds you too __powerfully__ of a queen of a realm in another world__?_

"Harry? What ails you, my son?" He knew that sentence. He knew that sentence from somewhere, and he knew the _somewhere_, although he couldn't pinpoint the specifics anymore, amongst the years (decades? centuries?) of dreams he'd had thus far.

"…Mother?" he asked. Such a ridiculous question. Neither Lily nor Frigga had reason to sense the underlying second question embedded in this one, unless they were the originatrix of those dreams.

It was no use. He'd have to ask. He needed to know, now. One way or the other. Or it would eat away at him, dog his waking hours, consume his mind. It was a question that he could get an answer to, perhaps, and that _now_.

"What is it, my son?" she asked, and something flared, fierce and bright (and cold?), something unfamiliar, and twisted: a harbinger of the coming disasters, not yet remembered.

"You aren't my mother," he said, his voice cold and harsh. She staggered, flinched, stopped where she was approaching.

"Harry, what are—?"

"I know who you are: you're Frigga, Queen of Asgard. How dare you pretend to be my mother? Was there even a 'Lily Evans' at all? How could you? How could you lie to me?"

He spun to face her, fists clenched tight. He glared down at the floor. He would be justified in attacking her for her deception, he knew.

But he could not bring himself to do it. Frigga in the other dreams had been gentle and kind, the only one to protect Loki. Even as the family now strained, breaking apart, she strove to hold it together, to meld it back into a coherent unit. Perhaps that was the reason, or perhaps it was the lack of malice. Some part of him still understood the situation, could understand Frigga's actions. That part—the part that was perhaps Loki—could not bear to see her harmed.

That did nothing to quell the anger, burning cold, and glacially slow. Shame, pain, revenge. The three linked together, feeding off one another now the cycle was set in motion.

Frigga turned to face him, eyes wide, as they began to flood with tears. This couldn't be the reunion she had desired, but _what right did she have, to impersonate a dead woman_? Goddess or no, no one had such a right.

"How—how do you know that name?" she whispered, voice now brittle and frail as spun glass.

He didn't have to answer her. He stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists, burning holes in the floor with the strength of his glare.

"Well, it is no matter. You are _wrong_. I _am_ your mother, Harry," the queen said, and there was an odd sense, a shift somewhere in Harry's sixth and seventh senses, as the glow fell off from around "Lily", and the resonance was gone from her voice, too, when next she spoke.

"Harry, honey, _please_. We only have such a short time together. Please, let's not fight." There was none of Frigga's quiet authority in her voice when she spoke, and Harry felt his fists relax, and didn't notice when they didn't clench again. Lily came to him, and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, fiercer and more desperate than any of Frigga's, and if she'd lost the resonance and glow, nevertheless she made up for it with a strange, novel warmth, a passion, as if she put her whole soul into every action. Long red hair tickled his nose and bare arms.

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry," she whispered, tucking his head under her chin. She'd crouched down to hug him, and pulled him down with her. That was about as much similarity to Frigga's usual hugs as Harry could sense. Was this, then, Lily Evans—his _mother_, after all?

She pulled back, and only then did he realise that she was crying, as hot tears splashed onto his shirt.

"Is this how it has to be then, Harry? Is this the only way that I can see you?"

The air around her shimmered, and Harry pushed her away—with a gentleness that surprised _him_, never mind her—as the glow returned.

"My precious son," Frigga whispered. "My own flesh-and-blood. Will you reject me, even now?"

"You mean to say that you _are_ my mother? That I'm not just some—some _changeling_ child?— this time?" Harry asked. He couldn't help the tone of bitterness, the sharpness in his voice.

"What gives you reason to believe—? Do you—do you _remember_?" She fixed him with a wide-eyed stare that Harry could almost trick himself into believing truly saw _everything_.

"I saw it in my dreams," he said, shrugging, as if it weren't important. "When you—when you said I might have two brothers, did you mean—?"

The princes in the dream. One which he (after a fashion) _was_. Two. Or one. Or none at all, if you counted only Lily Evans, who had no other children. Was _that_ his mother's (she was, right?) mysterious math?

"You remember?" she asked, eyes downcast as the weight of her expression pulled them down. Something about his demeanour must have given him away (how could she read him with such ease?), for she continued, in a tremulous voice, "_Loki_?"

"Don't call me that," Harry snapped, recoiling as if from a physical blow. He hadn't meant to bring the other dreams here, but he had, albeit accidentally, and if there were any reality to either, now they were both interconnected. He hadn't meant to. Now it was too late to take it back. Her eyes widened, again, the glow dimmed, as if in some state of transition, in-between, _ambi-valence_,

"There is much of great importance concerning which we must speak, and yet—" she held out a hand for him again, perhaps now thinking of and remembering, too, the night when Thor had almost died. He hesitated, and then took her hand.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, knowing full well that that was insufficient for an apology. Words could not express the depths of his regret—not even just for this moment, but for events past, their memories not yet recalled. She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile.

"—I think there are other matters we must discuss first," she finished. Her sentence had probably been tending that way all along.

He let her lead him back to the living room, where it had begun. He stared at his knees, and for a moment, they sat in silence, his mother with unflagging patience, waiting, waiting, waiting. She could outwait him.

"Are you—are you truly my mother, Lily Evans?" he asked, unable to keep his voice from rising in pitch and volume. Unable to suppress that desire, longing, _hope_.

"Yes," she said, leaving no other interpretation to her words but just that which answered what he'd asked.

Another long pause. "But…" he trailed off, waiting to be interrupted. She waited, instead, and he forced himself to continue. "You're Frigga, Queen of Asgard. You're Loki and Thor's mother." _And maybe Hel's_, he added silently, where she couldn't hear.

She looked far too regal, sitting there, straight-backed, with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

"Yes," she said. "I _was."_

"But _how_?" he immediately continued, trusting in his haste to convey how important the question was. That and the great emphasis he put into the second word.

She sighed, looking down in her lap, where her hands lay clasped. The glow dimmed around her, and then died.

"I died," said Lily, in a voice without resonance—a simple, human woman's voice. She gave him a warm smile that he couldn't return. _Dead_. These memories, then, must all be in the distant past. Perhaps Ragnarök had come and gone, and taken the queen with it.

And it would be his—no, _Loki's_—fault.

"Oh," he said, unable to look at her.

"Asgard was under attack. An artefact of bygone days was brought by Thor, indirectly, to Asgard. He hoped that I could save the girl, but it was beyond my power. When the Dark Elves came, they killed me. I was reborn, in the past, as Lily Evans, an ordinary, human woman. I had no idea as to my true identity, until I _died_, and found refuge in your soul. Perhaps, it is because of my presence here that you remembered what should be hidden from your mind, for you must also be—"

He didn't want to hear it. Could he close his ears to her words? But perhaps it was all just a dream, after all. A way for his mind to take a break from the serious strain produced from his dreams of another world.

Lily Evans, mother of Harry Potter. Frigga, mother of Loki and Thor. And here, in this dream, they were one-and-the-same. That didn't mean it was true in the outside world. Humouring such thoughts must surely be the route to madness.

_Hardly_, scoffed the part of his mind that he had disavowed. He slammed the door on it, metaphorically speaking, and resolved anew to attempt to take things as they came.

Lily slung an arm around his shoulders—a very human gesture, and pulled him into her, to kiss the top of his head. He'd seen mothers do that on playgrounds, seen the exaggerated expressions of disgust, the sneers. There was no need for pretence here in his mind. He leant in, determined to savour every moment.

Lily Evans had done no wrong to him. She deserved for him to give her a chance.

No matter _how_ it complicated things.  
  
---  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing that I kept waiting for my readers on FF.net to point out, which they never did (which rather alarms me), was Harry's reaction to Lily's revelation in this chapter. Uh, no, Harry, you are _not_ justified in attacking her. She's your _mother_. That's called domestic abuse. The only factor that somewhat excuses his behaviour is that Harry has a warped sense of morality, which makes sense given his upbringing at the Dursleys. They won't have instilled proper morals in him. He doesn't know better. Still....  
(I had an author's note that explained my sentiments better, and then my computer restarted without asking or telling me, and it was lost.)


	7. Winter in New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I followed canon decently here. But rereading it still makes me twitchy. Maybe I should edit the first scene....

It was a good thing that he would see his mother again at the end of April, because he had little to look forward to. His dreams turned progressively uglier, tensions strained the once close-knit family, he at the epicentre.

_Does he not understand what he is doing?_ Harry wondered. _How his __**jealousy**__ is tearing his own family apart?_

But Thor continued to be reckless, and Loki continued to defend him, and beneath the surface, surely, trouble was brewing, and even Odin would not overlook his son's rashness forever.

The coronation approached, and Loki held out some last hope that Thor would finally take responsibility.

Instead, he led an unauthorised expedition/invasion to Jotunheim, and needed to be rescued by his father, who finally had enough. Loki tried to save Thor from his inevitable punishment (that was, honestly, a long time coming), but Odin, for once, would have none of it. He cast Thor aside, to Earth, and Loki followed, as he must.

Things only got worse, from there, with the creeping slowness of the most insidious poisons.

The Warriors Three followed Thor to Earth, and then came the battle in which Thor proved himself worthy, having finally, finally, _finally_ learnt restraint and sacrifice. He'd been remade, the impurities smelted from him by dint of his stint on Midgard, but there was no time for celebration; Loki had other plans.

Harry at last discovered his ability to distance himself from his dreams when they brought him to The Bridge. Somewhere deep, deep down, set into his bones, was the knowledge that he didn't have the stamina, the fortitude, the _strength_, to witness this from Loki's point-of-view.

Somehow, just this once, he managed to detach himself from that identity, and watch the dream from without, governed and guided by his forewarning of impending disaster.

Of course, he wasn't _completely_ detached from the prince_—_he still had to suffer the same emotions, and the occasional thought also filtered through. In the scene that lay before him_—_currently frozen, with the two princes (gods) fighting atop the Rainbow Bridge. Where was Heimdall? Nowhere to be seen.

Grace of Harry's bond with the younger prince, he knew that said prince was still distraught over recent revelations. For some reason, he seemed to believe that genocide (of the race of his birth, no less) was the solution. Prove your utter loyalty to your avowed home by ridding it of any other contenders? Wasn't that something he'd seen on one of the movies he'd snuck into the living room to watch while the Dursleys were out with Dudley on an extended vacation? (Mrs. Figg had slept right through, none the wiser, and he'd been sure to rewind the videocassette before removing it from the VCR, so there was no evidence.)

He'd never seen a _self-imposed_ test of loyalty before, however.

The air was taut as a drawn bowstring when the scene finally began to unfold before Harry's eyes. He stood back and watched, knowing that he was helpless to do anything_—_for good, or for ill.

Thor managed to damage the Rainbow Bridge_—_destroying his means of returning to the woman he loved, back on Midgard, to prevent Loki from annihilating a race he'd tried to slaughter himself only days before. Yep. That was character development for you, as his literature class would put it.

Harry was _very_ glad not to feel the physical pain of blows from Thor's hammer, Mjölnir_—_-but that did nothing to bar the _emotional_ pain of the situation. And then came the moment that Harry might have sensed was coming all along, when Loki was flung off the bridge, and was falling…falling….

Only to be caught by his father, Odin, who had recovered from his bout of frostbite-cum-Odinsleep in time to save the younger prince.

So much might have been different, had Loki not been so full of a deep-seated bitterness, anger, shame, the shock of betrayal. Perhaps they might have discussed things, and Odin would explain why genocide was wrong, that he'd done the best he could as a father, but hadn't always succeeded as much as he would have liked, but _we're still your family, and we love you, Loki. You don't have to be our child from birth to be our __**son**_. Along with any other clichés and heartwarming reconciliations you might want.

As it was, Loki dangled precariously into the abyss, one hand holding all his weight, one hand keeping him out of its depths.

Harry knew that it was calling him, a lure. His fate, all along, had been just this, and when Loki let go, fell, with a silent scream, into the void below, Harry just frowned, and sighed, and pretended he didn't feel the fear, despair, resignation, anger, that did not diminish as Loki fell.

The scene cut out, perforce, soon thereafter, because even had Harry remained as an incorporeal ghost upon the broken bridge, he nevertheless was limited to Loki's knowledge. He understood that. He was sure that, even had he been given free rein to wander the castle with furnishings intact, he would never have found the castle underbelly, for Loki had never found it.

And now, Loki was out of sight of those on the bridge_—_or rather, _they_ were out of _his_ sight, and the vision ended there.

Harry jerked awake, and although the night was only half-gone, sleep eluded him for the rest.

* * *

The next night was April Thirtieth. Never had he been as relieved to see the cabin before him. So weary that he could barely place one foot in front of the other, he braced himself against the door before slowly turning the handle, relying upon his weight, slight as it was, to push the door open. He staggered through, as if the injuries of the night before had, because he had foregone feeling them at the time, merely been held aside for him for distribution later (i.e.: tonight).

He was unaware of any obstacles in his path, had never before seen the rug he tripped on near the doorway (or had never noticed it). He crashed to the floor, but couldn't summon the energy to stand.

His mother came rushing over, rolling him onto his side, and then, with inhuman strength, lifting him to his feet. She guided him to the living room, and he followed her lead. She laid him down on the sofa, and sat on its edge, stroking the side of his face.

"Harry?" Lily asked. "What happened? Are you okay?"

No resonance. Harry groaned, and managed to sit up. He peered across at Lily, in her forest green dress and red cape. Some part of him desperately wanted to make a sarcastic comment about her choice of attire, but he hadn't the strength.

"The dreams…" he murmured. This was a dream, too, of course, but she knew that. He didn't have to explain _that_. But it occurred to him that, as a character in his dreams, she deserved to know that she had been being watched, as he had thought in that long ago time (surely it had been a few centuries, at least) before he'd gone to the library to research.

"What dreams, Harry?" she asked. He just gave her a blank, empty stare, that made her shiver at the unHarryness of it. A corpse should have that look, but not a living child.

"Mother," he said, the word chosen deliberately to invoke Frigga. He licked his lips, gathering whatever of courage he'd built up. "I told you before that I'd seen, I'd heard names and the like, in my dreams?"

She reached out to take his hand, with a regretful sigh. A half-glow, almost a halo, appeared about her. "I remember," she said, very quietly. "Then, are you willing to speak of them now, my son?"

He knew the tricks of invocation, apparently. He'd needed to speak with _Loki's_ mother, after all, and he'd drawn her out.

"The dreams are the stuff of madness, and yet you would have me believe that they are _real_. Shall I tell you what I have witnessed, and see if it matches your own knowledge?"

As a mother, she understood the unspoken message: _I need to talk to someone about this, and I have no one else to turn to_. Her expression wilted, the corners of her mouth dragged the corners of her eyes down with them.

"If you wish to speak of it, I will listen," she promised. There were other matters of which she needed to speak with him—his godfather, the traitor Pettigrew, James's third friend, Remus Lupin, the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore, Hogwarts.

She shoved them aside, for the second time. Her son's sanity was the more pressing concern, at the moment.

Harry took a deep breath, and began with the beginning. "It started the night after I turned ten…."

* * *

His next few dreams were oddly fragmented and vague. He suspected, at first, that they were merely the sign of a descent into madness, and dismissed their irregularity. He realised that they'd skipped ahead ("missing time", they called it), but that wasn't even the oddest part of all this.

His dreams were fragmented, broken, and fluctuated in and out of focus, as a badly-tuned radio or television. Words, scenes, images, people, faded in and out of his awareness. There were discrepancies between what he meant to do, and what he _did_, even when the dream was "in focus".

Madness, then? No, something else. Whatever connected _before_ to _after_. A being, he thought, but a forgotten being; as if his subconscious knew that he wasn't ready to remember, it had skipped those memories entirely.

And the broken, distorted, fun-house mirror memories were, likewise, a byproduct of someone _else_ messing with his mind_._

He didn't know why he was sure of this, but he _was_. It was the same as all of the other things that he didn't know how he did.

A scene (part of a scene) in Germany (how he knew that was as much a mystery as the rest of his dream-knowledge). Harry-Loki versus a man dressed in red, white, and blue. The "star-spangled man". The "man out of time".

"I'm not the one out of time," the man said. Then, the red-and-gold robot appeared. The red-and-gold _flying_ robot. But Harry was serving as a distraction for…someone else, and he had more than enough power and experience even to fight both of them at once.

The battle wavered in-and-out of focus. Harry knew that he ended up surrendering himself as a prisoner, but the knowledge of _why_, the motivation, lay outside his reach. It couldn't be because he was outmatched. For all that these two individuals were tough, Loki was a _god_. Something else was in play.

Whispers of the unknown being, perhaps? Harry wasn't sure.

It didn't matter. The next partial scene starred him, and, of all unexpected individuals, _Thor_, his brother. It began with the ominous warning of thunder rolling overhead, with the man within the robot suit—a scraggly bearded, black-haired man—sitting across from him, and the walking American flag took a jab at him.

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?"

"I'm not _overly_ fond of what follows," Loki said—a striking difference to his old viewpoint.

The moment of sharpest clarity—he might almost have broken the hold of whomever the unknown being was pulling his strings as if he were a puppet—came when Thor said.

"We thought you _dead_," and Harry replied, in a rather mocking tone,

"Did you mourn?"

As if he expected a "no" after that previous statement. Instead, of course, Thor said,

"We all did." The moment cast itself into sharp relief. Thor was no longer the unpredictable, reckless one, seeking out senseless conflict. Surely, he would recognise the strangeness, the hypocrisy, in his brother waging war on the entire world (apparently).

But he didn't seem to, and the scene faded back into a muted muddle soon thereafter.

That was the last scene of the night, and it lingered with Harry, more vibrant through its contrast with the other dreams. Waking-Harry (the _real_ Harry, as Harry considered himself) had heard of the man in his dreams wearing the American flag—his name was "Captain America", and he was a renowned hero from World War II, who had fought the Nazis with abilities bolstered by a mysterious substance known as the "super serum". An entire day of class had been dedicated just to him.

They'd learnt in the next class that he'd been lost in the ice, his body never recovered. That was one point against the dreams, although the man _could_ have survived the fifty years since his disappearance—who knew how such an experimental substance might have affected his biochemistry?

The man in the red-and-gold suit was called Ironman, but his real name was _Tony Stark_, _the_ Tony Stark, renowned genius and weapons manufacturer. That two such famous individuals also appeared in his dreams was definitely evidence against them, Harry decided, as he awoke at his normal time to prepare breakfast for the day before school.

The next night continued the strange tale of Captain America and Iron Man (and Thor), and their battle against Loki, joined by a redheaded woman (nothing similar to Lily; her hair was blood red and curly, to Lily's straight, fiery-hued hair), and her debrainwashed friend, a former minion (_what_?) of Loki's, who for some reason wielded a bow.

And a peaceful, amiable man, quiet and contemplative, who could turn into a giant green…thing.

Oh, and it took place in New York. _Modern_ New York, which shouldn't have been surprising, given the robot suit, but somehow was, nonetheless, when Harry awoke.

Except it wasn't even _modern_ New York, was it? Not with ads for Stark's clean energy project, and Stark Tower (powered by one of his arc reactors, it would sustain _itself_, electricity-wise). Stark was still in the weapons trade, as far as he knew. A quick glance at a newspaper on the following day confirmed it.

Did these dreams pretend to be visions of the _future_, then? Impossible. Ten points, at least, against their reality. Harry almost _sagged_ with relief. They couldn't possibly be true, and he wasn't going mad. It was just the overactive imagination Vernon Dursley had done his utmost to stamp out of him. Perhaps he was justified, if this was the sort of madness it led to.

Following a battle with greenish humanoid aliens, the Avengers cornered him in Stark Tower, and the Hulk made short work of him, by flinging him into the floor, and then added insult to injury by saying, "Puny god," (a direct response to Loki's calling that he was "a _god_, you pathetic creature," which made his actions perhaps more forgivable, if no less painful).

Staring down the weapons of all the Avengers, wondering with sudden clarity of mind just _what the hell_ he'd been doing attacking New York in the first place, Loki surrendered, for real, this time, and the dream ended with him being returned to Asgard alongside the relic known as the _Tesseract_.

The dreams ended there. Not just for that night, either. They were no longer to reliably haunt his nocturnal hours ever again. Occasionally, one would assail him_—_not always at night, either—in the future, but it was usually prompted by something. Triggered. When he slept the next night, it was to the old, boring dreams, of singing rhododendrons, cats who turned into women, and Dudley playing rugby with an ostrich and a llama among his teammates.

Harry didn't know whether or not to be disappointed. What happened next? What _had_ become of Loki?

_They're just __**dreams**_, he told himself firmly. _They aren't __**real**__, so it doesn't __**matter**_. But somehow, he had a hard time believing that, himself.

And he missed them, whether he admitted it or not. Thor, and Frigga, and Odin. Even the Warriors Three, and the surprisingly reasonable Lady Sif. He _wanted_ them to be real. It was only the narrative he wished to change. His _role_. But why dwell on what couldn't be helped? He had a life to be living, after all.

Even if he seemed to be spending most of it in his cupboard, of late.

Whenever he went to the library, his inevitable sentence was over a week without food, spent in his cupboard, followed by a further week of close supervision, spent performing his chores. The incident with the snake in the zoo earned him his longest ever punishment of a _month_ in his cupboard, with the usual ten days without food, followed by a more severe ten days on short commons.

Harry wondered how they could possibly get away with this. But the librarians, at least, believed him when he finally confessed the truth. They promised him that something would be done… but nothing was. And when he returned to the library in mid-May, neither of the librarians were to be found. When he asked, he was told that they had decided (each independently) to move for better prospects to London. Both of them. Independently. After promising to help him.

It sounded like something from a sci-fi movie. One of the ones he'd once managed to sneak in watching whilst the Dursleys were out. He could count the number of movies_—_not educational videos, but _movies_—he had seen on his fingers, with digits to spare. But this sure sounded like the plot of one of them. He wondered if they'd been "disposed of", and shuddered, reconsidering all the others he had asked for help, and what might truly have become of them.

Perhaps it was better if he fended for himself. He didn't want anyone to _die_, trying to help him. The Dursleys had yet to push him to starvation, after all. He'd emerged from his cupboard, shaking and weak, but _alive_.

Perhaps the same could not be said of those to whom he'd turned for help.

His penultimate visit to the library (there was no point in going, he decided, with the helpful, knowledgeable librarians gone), was swift followed by Dudley's nightmare birthday. He'd only just begun to recover his strength, when a talking snake, and a disappearing glass barricade, sentenced him to an even _greater_ stay in his cupboard.

He was surprised at his own stamina, that he could still stumble out of his cupboard, frail and drawn. It felt almost…familiar.

As if he'd been through something even more severe…or Loki had.

He pushed that explanation aside with the greatest violence his preoccupied mind could muster.

But it was July, now, and the summer holidays had begun, and he had something to look forward to: the knowledge that, come September, he would be going to the local public school, Stonewall High, and would at last be free of Dudley, who had been accepted to Uncle Vernon's old school of Smeltings.

The outfit was ludicrous, but the walking stick was an additional weapon to Dudley's arsenal, one with greater reach than what Dudley usually used. He spent the next few days with no option but to do his best dodging Dudley's cane. On the one hand, he had Loki's training as guidance. On the other, the world was still spinning and fading in and out due to his recent stint in the cupboard. His mind was more than a bit foggy.

But he persevered, and just kept working, wondering as he did, quite pointlessly, how the Dursleys had managed to elude notice when he'd missed half of the second semester, including the last month of term. It seemed impossible. But it had happened, which meant that it wasn't.

His mind was still muddled when the letter addressed to him came, but he had the presence of mind, despite it all, to slip it under his baggy hand-me-down shirt, belting Dudley's old jeans carefully over the envelope, and hoping that it wasn't anything too sensitive to creasing or breakage. It was just an envelope, a letter, but it was a letter to _him_, and he had no experience with the post. The letter was special, memorable…almost sacred.

He hid it successfully from the Dursleys, and then waited for them to go to bed, and to be locked into the cupboard for the night, before opening the letter, and reading by the light of his magic.

A school for "Witchcraft and Wizardry", called "Hogwarts"? Who names a school that? But the magic part of it…well, he knew that magic had to be real. Did Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon know? Had they known all along? Had _that_ been what they'd been trying to stamp out of him?

A chance to go to a boarding school, far removed from the Dursleys…it was a dream come true. And yet….

_We await your owl by no later than July Thirty-First_. That was what the letter read. He had to reply, clearly, by no later than (midnight of?) his birthday. But…there was one problem. He had no means of contacting them. Either "owl" referred to the bird—likely, as it was lowercase—or it was a special, wizard way of contacting people. Either way, he had no chance of obeying the instructions.

He set the letter aside, hidden under his threadbare mattress, and pondered what to do. He didn't even sleep, that night.

Letters continued to come, when he failed to respond. They came one at a time, at first, and then in an ever-mounting torrent, as if the floodgates of the post had burst open, and a tsunami of letters poured out, all of them identical, with that familiar green ink, and the disturbingly specific address.

The Dursleys tried everything they could think of to stop the letters—boarding up all entrances and exits (which was ridiculous; eventually they'd have to open them up, for Vernon to go to work, or to get groceries, or else they'd starve to death); giving him Dudley's second bedroom; and then leaving the house, driving across the country until they reached the sea, and rowing out to a small, dilapidated shack on the middle of a desolate island.

That was where Hagrid found him, of course, and then everything was alright. Finally, he had answers to some of his questions. And he at last knew what his mother had meant by "James's _world_". The wizarding world. Hogwarts. Where, perhaps, his true destiny awaited, and his life would _truly_ begin.


End file.
